SuperWeapon X
by SuperCharles
Summary: What if... DC - Marvel Mashup. A certain alien crash lands in Canada, and is saved not by a kindly couple but an advanced Weapons research facility... Includes characters & stuff from TV Smallville /Movies. PG13
1. Chapter 1

The Native American woman was startling beautiful. Her silver hair was the colour of moonlight, neither grey nor white, but something else, it was mercurial.

She sat cross legged in deep meditation. There was no pounding drums, no bass chant, or wisps of fragrant smoke around her. The only music was her heartbeat, the slow rhythm of her breathing.

Microphones listened. Cameras recorded. This was sound insulated room, deep in the Yukon Mountains of Eastern Canada. Remote and isolated, the home of a special project.

In the darkness she let out a terrible wail.

"Silver Fox!" Came the voice. Light's engaged. From behind a closed door a man followed, his lab coat the uniform of his profession. From it hung a identifying badge.

_Professor Abraham Cornellius_. His red hair and beard distinguished with grey missing from the younger man who looked out from the embedded picture. _Project Leader Weapon-X._ Abraham knelt beside his test subject. "What did you see?" He asked.

"Something is coming." Silver Fox replied. Breathless she shook.

Cornellius helped her upright. Was it excitement, or fear? He couldn't tell. Wide eyed she stared into him. "Tonight." She said, her nails bit through his clothes, she gripped tighter. "She brings him tonight!"

Cornellius shook his head not yet understanding. Silver Fox was still in a trance, he could see the whites of her eyes. Her words meant nothing – yet. Abraham led her into the adjacent room. Computer screens flickered green on black.

"I need to draw." She told him.

He obliged.

Abraham watched as Silver Fox sketched what she had seen, the pen scraped on the back of the hastily grabbed perforated printer paper. Her delicate fingers drew with a few bold strokes recognisable images.

"A shooting star." He said, then finger to the recognisable outline. "Over Mount Logan."

As the skilled artist sketched a second series of striking images Cornellius analytical mind had pieced together the information the Native American Psychic had received into a working theory. He was already reaching for the receiver.

"I need a retrieval squad in the air immediately." He snapped. "Get choppers over the western slopes of Mount Logan now."

X

The beat of blades in the night air and roar of engines thundered across the bleak landscape. Like great black insects the military helicopters swung low over the white snow.

Inside thermal cameras picked up whatever hot bloodied life was to be found.

Then it came a fiery ball of light falling almost colliding with the mountain, and yet the meteor changed course, just enough. Enough to miss the jagged ridge of rock, enough to confirm this was an unidentified flying, as opposed to falling, object. There was an explosive impact as it made contact with the ground several miles away, a bang, a crashing of timber, a dark shadow as earth was catapulted skyward.

The Helicopters closed in, and the UFO exploded. A burst of bright green light and then darkness.

"It's destroyed itself." The Pilot observed as he swung around the burning pit that had been the crash site.

"There." A gloved finger stabbed at thermal imaging screen in the cockpit of the lead chopper. Red and amber was the colour of the now moving target.

"Just as the Professor predicted." The Pilot dipped the stick and pursued.

"My God. How is that possible?" His Second asked.

Another harsher voice barked over the coms. "Do _not_ let the target escape."

The Pilot swore. "The old man is watching. Better make this look good." His finger flicked the cover from the trigger for his weapons.

From the lead chopper a line of fire spat from chain guns hung from the sides of the aircraft. Tracer's lit the night.

The target leapt out of the line of fire, sailing high above the trees before hitting the ground once more.

"Estimate target speed to be in excess of fifty miles per hour."

"I have a firing solution." A second gunship had swung around ahead of them, it fired. The Target leapt again, away from the new threat, but back into the sights of the lead Chopper. Bullets tore into the night once more.

"Target is down. Repeat Target is down,... Wait, Target is moving again, don't just,... shoot Goddamit."

"Bullet Proof." Cornellius whispered disbelieving. He watched the live feed. He'd never forget this moment. She was so human, so angry, tears streaked down her cheeks, as her fists smashed into the lead Helicopters canopy. Leaping to attack her attackers.

"Target her now. Use the Missiles." The voice crackled over the radio, betraying its distance. However remote they were from their sponsor, the old man, it seemed, was always watching.

"But the crew..." Abraham stammered, even as he saw the target pull the pilot from his seat, sending him tumbling away from the helicopter into the snow.

"Now." The old man barked.

The second Helicopter gunship responded. Missiles shrieked from it's pods. The distance between them and the first gunship was less than a hundred feet. The explosion followed almost instantaneously, buffeting the second helicopter even as it pulled up and away from the fire ball.

The first gunship and the female target fell together from just above the tree tops to the forest floor. A flaming ball to the snow.

Even as the secondary explosion followed moments later, a third helicopter landed and disgorged a ground assault team.

They ran. Closing in, not on the fiery wreck, but using hand held instrument, they scuttled towards a second smaller heat signature.

The scream shook the forest. Snow fell from trees, on the mountain there was a distant rumble of avalanche. The men on the ground staggered as the sound assaulted them.

The bursting missile had punctured the female target's skin, she bled from a wound on her side. Her clothes were otherwise untouched. Fire clung to her as it consumed splashed gasoline. She did not seem to care. Staggering forward she broke into a sprint, but was met by a heavy burst of concentrated fire from the second helicopter's chain guns. She kept on coming as if fighting through an icy hail storm. Accelerating towards the ground team.

Missiles streaked downwards, multiple launches, exploding around her. The soldiers on the ground threw themselves into the snow, scrabbling from cover, hiding from the fire and shrapnel.

From the air came search lights into the mist. Then as the smoke cleared they all saw her. She staggered on. Bloody now, her clothes torn, she fell, crawling, leaving a bloody trail over the white of snow.

Her hand reaching outwards, her last movements laboured, then with her dying breath she gasped her last word, as her fingertips touched the blue and red blankets that swaddled the child in the snow. Her child, her baby.

"Kal-El."


	2. Chapter 2

"Lionel." Professor Cornellius said. Surprise registered in his face, in the inflection of his voice. "I didn't expect..."

"That I'd come all this way."

Lionel Luthor's flowing mane was more grey than the copper red of his youth. Despite the oh so expensive Saville Row suit, there was something of the aged hippy about his long hair, and buccaneer beard. Like Sir Francis Drake, Luthor was a State Sanctioned Pirate. The United States turned a blind eye to his less than legal activities as long as he kept his end of the bargain. Part of that was farming out his more exotic research to far away places. Preferably not American Soil. Like the Yukon.

"The adult is dead?"

"Yes." Abraham responded. He led the old man into the laboratory. The deceased woman's body was suspended in an amber liquid, her naked body covered with deep lacerations.

"I find that puzzling." Luthor looked at the crib with the healthy infant. "However her desperate actions makes sense, she was a mother protecting her child." Lionel stroked the dark haired infants head. "Incredible." he said. "Alien and yet outwardly human." He looked at Abraham. "And you're sure that neither are homosuperior?"

"They both possess the most incredibly complex genome."

Luthor picked up a scalpel. "Adamantium." He said as he inspected the razor edged blade.

"I bent six needles against the baby's skin before I concluded only Adamantium was going to be up to the task." Cornellius replied.

Scalpel in hand Lionel pressed it against the plump baby thigh, he pressed harder, the baby kicked. The old man fell back angry. Blood welled from the wound he had made.

The babies cry was deafening.

Abraham closed the translucent perspex like lid of the cot. The wail was muffled as the seals engaged electronically.

"The cut is healing before my eyes." Lionel observed.

"As I reported."

"Then surely this is but another example of an aggressive healing factor – a mutation?"

"No." Abraham shook his head. "A highly evolved metabolism."

Luthor stroked his beard. "However this factor is not as aggressive as subject zero." Lionel gestured to the corpse of the baby's mother. "He would have regenerated."

"There was another force at work that night." Cornellius explained.

Luthor waited expectantly. The Professor opened a sealed container. "This is a sample of a radioactive material found in and around the crash site."

"The fuel?"

"I thought so at first, but the dispersal pattern of the fragments suggest the material accompanied the capsule to Earth, rather than was contained within."

Luthor took the glowing green crystallised rock from Cornellius. "Pretty." He said holding it up to the light. "Does it do anything."

Abraham opened the cot once more, the baby had stopped crying, now it sniffled and kicked, it's face twisting in fear. Luthor turned to the crib, and as he did so, the old man saw at once a change come over the infant. "So sudden." Lionel purred. "His skin looks ashen." He brought the rock closer, the kicks all but stopped, the child's breathing became laboured. "Fascinating. The wound has begun to bleed once more."

"Whatever this is," Cornellius said, "it's as alien as they are, and it has an immediate effect on the child." His hand grasped around Luthor's. "Too much exposure would, I think, be fatal." He closed the lid of the crib once more.

He did not need to spell this out to his boss. "I see." Lionel said returning the shard of green rock, so Abraham could return it to the sealed container. "You're telling me the mother was actually _weakened_ when she attacked my men – when she punched a helicopter gun ship out of the air?"

"I believe so." The Professor said. "And it was her exposure to the rock at the crash site, followed by her extensive injuries that resulted in her death."

Luthor watched as the cut he had cruelly made disappeared for as second time as the childs skin and flesh healed.

"A tragic loss." He said looking at the dead mother.

"Under the circumstances, I'm not so sure."

"Whatever can you mean man?" Lionel spat. "The explosion destroyed the vehicle, and with the adult dead too, any hope of finding out the truth, of learning about these people – about their technology has been lost. Where do they come from, how come they look human?"

Luthor's stare demanded an explanation.

"Solar radiation."

"What?"

"They metabolise solar radiation."

The older man thought about this. "Then the female would have what? Gained even more strength – power, in daylight?"

"I think so. From the adult alien samples I have observed her cells contain more developed type of unknown organelles, and that these react to radiation."

"Positively to Solar radiation." Luthor concluded. "Negatively to the green rock's."

Abraham nodded. "I'm sure it's more complicated than that."

"Of course."

"But yes, that's the short of it."

"And so the child?"

"Has them, but comparing his cells to his mother's, the child's solar reactive organelles appear underdeveloped. I assuming that as the infant matures so will the efficiency of these secondary mitochondria."

"So you're telling me his metabolism might be as good as subject zero?"

"Better even."

Lionel grabbed Abraham at the shoulders. "Ye gods man, this makes a trip to the back end of beyond worthwhile." He smiled broadly. "You've finally made up for that fiasco!"

Beside them the baby cried in the sealed crib.

"This child could prove to be the ultimate weapon-X"


	3. Chapter 3

The desert heat hit Abraham Cornellius like a wall as he stepped out of the air conditioned aircraft. The private jet had brought him to this distant Luthor-Corp installation. This North African Compound was Isolated even in relative terms, and the local geography of the Libyan Desert meant any human settlement was very far away. Beyond the airstrip were the only signs of industry. Simple rounded blocks of off white concrete. Three Shapes that floated in the heat haze, like squashed almost flattened pyramids, with a single feature. A dark indistinct shadow. A wide hanger door, broad like an open mouth.

Abraham swore. His use of the anglo-saxon made the Arab soldiers chuckle. The heat was fierce. He bet an egg would fry on the asphalt. The case handcuffed to his wrist was heavy, and his arm ached with the weight of it.

"Ah Doctor, may I assist." Their Captain began. It was self evident that this officer shared an affection for an ostentatious military uniform with his Commander-in-Chief. Like Gadaffi he was draped in gold trimmings. "The heat. Here it is terrible. They say it is the hottest place in the world."

Abraham could see himself sweating in the reflection in the Captains mirrored sunglasses. "Yes, but you'll have to stick close, I'm chained to this." Cornellius let the Captain take hold of the large metal attaché case.

The man grunted as he took the weight. "It is heavier than it looks."

"That is on account of the lead shielding." Abraham replied.

Looking around his eyes squeezed together against the glare. "Hell on Earth then." Cornellius said. "Fitting." He grumbled.

"This way." The Captain pointed. "If you please."

Abraham was grateful to be ushered into the white Luthor-Corp Range Rover that waited to the side of the runway. It was only a few hundred metres to the nearest concrete structure, but the vehicle was a welcome respite from the sun. The heat was less stifling inside, just. The journey fast and short. The concrete structure was all but empty. The four by four braked to a halt. Parked in what appeared to be a painted bay on the floor. It was more than that. Moments later the car and its occupants began a long descent. The camouflaged elevator platform carried them quickly downwards. Several floors passed by, Abraham wasn't able to judge exactly how many.

Finally stopping the platform delivered them to an underground chamber. He followed the soldiers and their Captain's lead. Each exited the vehicle.

The air was cool, and the atmosphere sterile.

The installation was a simple, functional metal and concrete. Industrial and clean. Several minutes later, and some distance along straight tunnel corridors Cornellius was taken to large set of double doors. Here the Captain left Abraham to carry the burden of the metal case once again.

Abraham entered an expensively appointed office, but the furnishings belonged very much the previous decade. A fashion time capsule. That told it's own story.

There was the smell of leather, wood, against beige and orange. The gleam of real gold, and the smell of a very expensive Cigar.

Lionel Luthor smiled, from behind a fragrant cloud. Sat in a voluminous captains swing chair, behind a glass and gold desk. His suit was contemporary, wide shouldered and double breasted.

"Can I get you a drink Abraham." He said with a characteristic flash of his white teeth. "It's all very good." Using a wooden boxed clicker device he triggered a moving panel. A mirrored bar was revealed in the exposed alcove behind. "It was great when I had the bar stocked back in '78, now it's ten years older," He sipped Brandy from a wide bell and stemmed glass, "it's even better. Shame I can't say the same for the furnishings. Where did taste go in the 70's?"

"Why am I here – what has this installation to offer project Logan?" He raised the case. "And why did you want me to bring this?"

Lionel Luthor smiled. "Always anxious." He said. "Do you still fear the world being destroyed – how did you put it – reduced to sea of grey goo?"

"I'm anxious to work." Abraham countered. "Field tests are going well. The Couple you chose have proven to be excellent guardians."

Lionel Luthor nodded, he appeared unwilling to talk about his connection to this family. Lionel swallowed from his oversized glass, before getting up. "Come this way."

Lionel led him. More corridors. Long enough for his arm to ache once more. Finally a vault. A chrome keypad awaited. The industrialists fingers danced over the numbers. Ever the sly, the long haired billionaire kept his back between him and his employee. Cornellius didn't try and peek. He valued his life more highly.

"I spent a fortune digging the sands of Libya for this." Luthor told him.

Then with a flourish he pulled on the heavy lever that snapped back the hydraulic retaining bolts.

There was a hiss and slow movement of several feet of steel. Behind inches of toughened glass was an animal head. Or more accurately a desiccated skull. Skin was stretched taught, like leather, it was hairless, frayed around the bony extrusions around the nose and eye sockets. Little more than skin and bone, dry and long dead.

"What the Hell?" Abraham spluttered. Peering for a long moment agog. "What is this?" He asked Luthor. "It's huge, to big to be bovine, but from the shape, and given the shape of those horns, it appears to be a goat."

"I know you benefited from a classical education Abe." Lionel said. "Think man. Where are we?"

Abraham frowned. Luthor was mocking him. He was tired. Jet lagged, and his head was pounding. The metal case was heavy. He hated to think about the danger it contained.

"If this is Hell then that's the Devil himself?" Cornellius snapped.

"Close." Luthor chuckled. He puffed on his huge Havana. "But no Cigar."

* * *

><p>"It's so good to see you again Silvie." May Kent said. She poured ice tea.<p>

Silver Fox accepted the glass with a gracious smile. Her behind rested on the bannister rail that ran around the veranda porch of the nineteenth century farmhouse. She had refused a seat. She had been sitting in the car. Her light weight navy suit hung loosely. She had been aiming for a business like look, something to take the edge of her exotic appearance.

"It's been too long." Jonathan agreed. Under his green baseball hat, the knot forming between his brow seemed to say otherwise. He took a swig from a brown beer bottle. Pushing back into the antique rocking chair, crossing his booted feet, leather dusty with earth, rubbing the thick soles against the polished wood of the veranda. The sun was almost down. Sinking to the horizon of the verdant arable lands of British Columbia, Canada. Red light flickered through the cab glass of the Green John Deere parked between the House and the red painted barn.

"How is the boy?" Silver Fox asked.

"Growing like a weed." Jonathan replied.

May sat down on the Veranda chair. Placed her glass on the table while looking at Jonathan. It was a wordless rebuke.

"He's doing very well." May said. "He's already walking and talking. Maybe,.. well I thought he might be older than you told us."

"It's possible." Silver Fox said. She paused. This moment of uncertainty provoked the bluff farmer.

Jonathan raised his hand. "Look Silvie. Cut the crap. I can't know for certain," He tapped his checked shirt at his heart, "but I know Lionel Luthor. From way back." He lent forward. "I've met a lot of government types in my life. Heck they inspect this and inspect that, want to know more and more about how I farm, raise my stock, plant my seed. But you... you're not one of them."

He turned to his wife, with an apologetic smile. Then he said. "Face it. You're a class act. A catwalk model slumming it." Adding. "And no cheap supermarket suit is going to sell me the story that you're a social worker on a handful of Loonies."

He lent forward. "Your one of his - Lionel always had an eye for the ladies."

Silver Fox didn't like the implication, but given the circumstances she couldn't find it in her heart to blame him for his conclusions. She sighed. This had been a long time coming. Her monthly visits were bound to inflame the Kent's suspicions. She didn't need to be psychic to guess that much.

"Jonathan." May's rebuke was not silent this time. "We agreed..."

"To sup with the Devil."

"I married you didn't I?" May snapped back.

"I assure you Jonathan, May. I do have young Logan's best interests at heart."

"I'm calling him Reilly." May said. "Remember - it's my maiden name." She added. Her face red, her heartbeat raised. She was worried, afraid she might lose the child she had fast grown to adore. Her hand reached out for her husbands. Too late Jonathan was on his feet. He gripped the rail looking out across his land, standing next to Silver Fox, who was facing in.

For all his gruffness the Farmer loved the boy too. She saw this love drove his anger.

She also knew these emotions were effecting her. She had slipped up and mentioned the name Logan. Mount Logan where it had all begun.

"When we ran into trouble, when the Bank threatened us with a forced sale, the last thing I expected was a call from Lionel." Jonathan growled.

"But you took it."

"Hell yes. I wondered why after all this time..." He emptied the beer. Then sighed. "I mean an offer to help us relocate, a mortgage from – at a very favourable rate.

"He said he wanted to make amends. To be friends again."

"Of course." May noted. "Lion Capital is a wholly owned Luthor-Corp subsidiary."

"And the icing on this particular cake was the promise of a family." Jonathan continued.

Silver Fox nodded. "It can't have been easy leaving Smallville." She looked at the older man's weather worn face, whilst reading his hidden intentions. This was a good man she reminded herself.

"It was and it wasn't." Jonathan told her. "It was liberating, leaving all that history - generations of Kent's, the old feuds. From a well known face in a small town to a new place and a new start.

"Still miss the old Kent farm though."

"Cloverdale has been good to us." May said.

She likes it here Silver Fox thought, and what May likes matters to Jonathan. She means everything to him.

"Lionel has been good to us." Jonathan said. "But Luthor's are never good without a bad reason. That's what my Pa told me." The farmer turned and looked Silver Fox in the eye.

"Tell me what it is." Kent demanded. "There is something... different about the boy isn't there?"

So they knew. She tensed, everything – all her well laid plans now hinged on this couples willingness to trust her, a woman they thought was in bed with Lionel Luthor.

It was a big ask. She thought. "Yes." She replied. "He's special."

"How special." Jonathan asked. "Genetically special?" His eyes pin pricks. "I know where Lionel's interests lie.

"We were good friends once. Defy family. Defy history. Defy Nature. His words Silvie. Luthor Petro-Chemicals, was what it was then, a family business founded on a few oil wells, and chemicals and fertilizers. Lionel always said the next big step was genetic engineering. He said. '_Agriculture made us civilised. Geneculture will make us gods_'."

Jonathan folded his arms. "Tell me I'm wrong? Tell me Reilly isn't an experiment?"

Silver Fox could see tears in the farmer's eyes.

She felt like shedding her own. "Your wrong Mr Kent. Lionel hasn't done anything to... Reilly I mean." She didn't add - yet. She thought it, and for a moment forgot herself, as her emotions long suppressed tried to claw themselves animal like to the surface of her consciousness. She whispered to herself. "James why am I still doing this?"

Kent looked at her questioning. "Pardon?"

He hadn't heard her words. He couldn't understand. Not yet anyway.

She then said. "The boy was born this way – and he's not the worlds first.. exceptional child."

"A toddler shouldn't be able to lift his own crib above his head." May told her, he eyes demanded an answer.

"Samson could have done it." Jonathan laughed he ran his hand through his hair displacing the green baseball cap. It was a desperate sound. Of a man struggling to understand what he could not comprehend. "That's what you said May."

But May clearly didn't know what to say – or think right now.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the patter of feet. The baby waddled towards them. Somehow he'd come downstairs and opened the front door. A clever boy indeed Silver Fox thought. His development was already outstripping human norms. If it was to prove exponential as Cornellius predicted, then the Kent's were in for many more surprises in the coming months and years.

Silver Fox watched as Jonathan smiled at Logan, the boy he and May called Reilly.

"Yes – Samson, maybe others like Hercules or John Henry." Silver Fox said, as she looked down and straightened her skirt. Avoiding the Kent's eyes. "You're saying that there has always been exceptional individuals who became legends."

Silver Fox nodded. "Modern science is trying to understand how this happens, and how we can help. I'm part of that."

"And Luthor?" Silver Fox took hold of Jonathan's arm. She pulled him close and whispered. "Believe me Mr Kent I don't trust Lionel either."

Jonathan stared into her eyes. She touched his mind. Just enough to push him in her favour.

"May, I want the best for him and for you both." Silver Fox explained.

"You are here because?" Mrs Kent asked here adding for emphasis. "Be honest. We deserve the truth. For Rielly's sake."

"I was told to inform you that I'd be taking the child with me for more tests." Silver Fox replied.

"Now hang on. Rielly is going no where – not without us." May stated.

"Please May. Look it's clear you understand – that you've seen how different... Rielly is. For his safety and for yours too, it's very important to monitor his development closely."

"Why should we trust you."

"Because I made sure Luthor gave the child a chance to grow up with loving parents, instead of in a plastic bubble in some laboratory."

"You made sure?" Jonathan parroted. "How?"

"Like you said Mr Kent." Silver Fox replied. "I'm not a Social Worker. I have my own talents."

* * *

><p>Cornellius rubbed his wrist. Lionel had unlocked the cuffs, and the case now rested on a metal stand. Abraham glanced at it nervously. In front of them was the great skull. Removed from the vault it lay on a metal examination table, centre in a well equipped laboratory. Mummified flesh and skin clung to the bone. It had appeared hairless, but on closer examination under a lit magnifying lens, tiny tufts remained.<p>

"Here." Luthor said. Offering the scientist a scalpel. It sat nestling in a velvet case, like a fine pen.

Abraham recognised the blue steely glint from the blade.

"Adamantium?"

Luthor nodded. He took the tool, and recognised it. This was the same blade he had given Luthor in Canada at the Mt. Logan installation. The scalpel that had proven it's edge by cutting the alien child.

Lionel was telling him something. He did nothing by accident.

"Do you know how I recreated Adamantium?" Luthor asked.

"I do not?" Abraham replied. "Pray tell sir, I am all ears." He rubbed his sore wrist.

"No need to be tetchy Doctor." Luthor snarled. He grabbed hold of Cornellius's tired right arm. Lionel was advanced in years, but not weakened by them. He held Abraham's wrist and his hand held the scalpel. In that moment Abraham feared for his life. He imagined his throat opened by the preternaturally sharp and resilient blade.

Luthor held him fast for a moment, perhaps enjoying this primal display of power, then he forced the Doctor's hand not to his throat as Abraham feared, but to the old dried giant goat's skull.

As he did so Abraham stopped struggling, and free of resistance Luthor hand in hand with Cornellius stabbed the remains.

The blade scraped across the surface of the leathered skin, and left no mark.

"Again." Lionel ordered. Abraham obeyed. The result, or that should be the lack of results, Cornellius thought, was the same. The skin was unscathed.

"How?" Abraham spluttered. "Is this skull somehow impregnated with Vibranium?"

Lionel chuckled and shrugged. "There may some esoteric relationship, after all metal is in many myths is something stolen from the gods."

"This is why you had me bring the alien material?"

Lionel shrugged. "Your report old friend was clear. The material begins to digest every vessel you used to contain it, including Adamantium – in a clear attempt self repair."

Abraham shrugged. "Possible – probable even, but the danger of ecophagy cannot be dismissed. There is no guarantee that the alien von Neumann machines would simply cease activity. We are lucky that the radiation from Alien Rock Crystal acts as a suppressant. If these micro machines ran unchecked, if they didn't stop..."

"We are lucky that our radioactive space emeralds – these ARC's give us a degree of control over our alien visitors – especially the child. For the child will become a man."

Cornellius sighed. "I suppose if we're to dabble with doomsday technologies, Hell on Earth is a good a place as any." He looked at the skull. "So Lionel – what is exactly is this thing, another alien artefact?"

"What this is – is the head of Aegis Goat." Lionel replied pointing to the grizzly artefact.

Abraham coughed in disbelief. "The Titan animal of Greco-Romano myth?"

Lionel nodded.

Cornellius continued. "Whose hide provided Zeus and Athena with indestructible armour?"

"The same." Lionel affirmed. "Adamant Armour forged by the Smith-god Hephaestus himself, and this is the skull, a trophy of sorts. Long interred here in Libya's desert, as you put it – Hell on Earth."

"Adamant you say?" Abraham looked at the skull. "If this creature was real, and nigh on indestructible, then so was mythical metal Adamant." he concluded. "Are you saying _your_ Adamantium comes in some way from this Titan?"

Lionel laughed. "There is a story. Perhaps you are familiar with it? Centuries ago no metal on Earth could match Damascus Steel. From the third Century through to the age of enlightenment it was simply the best. The envy of the world. The secret guarded by an elite guild of smith's whose work with metals blurred the boundaries of science and magic. To each new batch of steel a seed of the first was added. Without this seed – this catalyst, the steel was ordinary, with it extraordinary.

"And can you guess how the first batch was forged?

"I think I might." Abraham frowned. "Although the notion is quite fantastic."

Lionel was looking at the goat and smiling his broad toothy grin. "Damascus' wizards of alchemy added a special ingredient to the crucible of that first melt. A single hair from this, the Skull of the Aegis Goat."

Abraham found himself shaking his head. "Alchemists, magic, gods – is this really where you are going Lionel?"

"Don't pull such a face Abe. Open your mind. The universe is not stranger than we imagine – it is stranger than we can imagine. Or have you a better explanation as to why an Adamantium scalpel can't cut the dried skin of an aeon old goat's head?"

Cornellius faced the evidence of his eyes, and answered saying. "Because this beast was the pure source material – the original indestructible Adamant."

"Exactly." Lionel grinned. "This was a living creature of magic – or perhaps such magic is but a science as yet undiscovered, at least by mortal man."

Abraham nodded. "So that is how it happened. Damascus, India, Japan. Incredible as it seems. It came down to this." He pointed at the skull.

"Come on Abe." Lionel asked. "Is the idea of such _mortal_ gods so incredible – after all what would our ancestors have called the Alien's that crashed on Mount Logan?

"There are Aliens. There were - perhaps still are gods, and the Aegis Skull and Adamantium is just part of this incredible legacy.

Lionel patted the locked case. "And this alien material is but a new chapter in that story. A story of theft and invention. Weapon X is back on course."

"You saw my report." Cornellius said incredulous. He was trying to make sense of this, to connect the dots, thinking; what is Lionel Luthor up to? "I fully expect that Logan-Child skeletal structure will be _stronger_ in it's adult state than Subject Zero's would have been after the Adamantium bonding process.

"Simply Lionel the Weapon X project is obsolete."

"Abe, Abe, you think too small. Adamantium is so last year. This is a new golden age. Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Well I'm going after the gods themselves." He turned to the Skull. Starting with the Aegis. I'm going to see what our Alien bio-tech can do."


	4. Chapter 4

Abraham Cornellius was separated from the sealed room by several inches of steel. His eyes were a bank of video screens. There no conventional illumination in the containment chamber, making infra-red cameras necessary. Robotic arms moved around the secure space, controlled by his hands. Lionel Luthor his employer watched as he opened the metal attaché case using a remote robot manipulator.

They were alone in a secure laboratory within the bunker under the Libyian Desert.

The steel exterior of the carry case was lined with a wall of lead. There was a bang as the metal struck the metal of the lab bench. The standard video feed shifted from pitch black to a ball of green light, the contents of the case was glowing.

Sitting across from the case was Lionel's grisly relic. Held aloft on single metal pole. To Abraham it looked like a talisman on a stake, at odds with the temple of science in which he worked.

Luthor insisted the skull was the remains of a long dead mythical Titan, and the origin of the legendary material Adamant, of which Adamantium was an alloy. Cornellius had reluctantly accepted the veracity of the claim. Its resilience made a compelling case. Now came the experiment Luthor had devised. There was no denying Lionel's peculiar brand of genius.

He was insane. Abraham was sure of it. Who else but a madman would conceive of this idea?

Like a Russian doll the case encapsulated a second glowing container. Green and translucent, or at least it appeared so. This was trick of light. Rather a myriad of tiny green luminescent crystals had been suspended in glass.

"It's peculiar that the ARC material is not as durable as Aliens themselves." Lionel noted. Not for the first time.

"We don't know what happened." Abraham replied. He was tired of this conversation.

Lionel frowned. Not knowing the truth about the alien's place of origin ate at the Billionaire, defining his obsession.

"For whom the gods destroy, they first make mad." Abraham whispered.

"Speak up man." Lionel growled.

A bead of sweat glistened on Cornellius's brow. It moved as he frowned in concentration. "It may be the diamond like hardness of Alien Rock Crystal on Earth means that it was like silly putty on the world from whence our visitors came." Abraham suggested. Adding. "What a terrible place that would have been."

Lionel snorted disapproving of Cornellius's choice of words. "Scouts, nay Abe, invaders. A single adult would be unstoppable." Luthor stated. "Which is why we need weaponise the child. Bend him to us, make him one of mine. Earth must be ready. Weapon X must be ready. There might be more of these ubermensch. They may even be here – how would we recognise these Alien Overmen? They look human."

Abraham let Lionel's obsession, his rant, wash over him as the Billionaire speculated on how and why the aliens looked human. "...Shape shifters..." "...Bred this way..." "...Biological Machines..."

His employer was convinced of the justice of his cause; defence of the Earth against an Alien menace.

Cornellius directed the robot arm, which opened the translucent glowing container, revealing the contents. Abraham remembered the white cloth with a metallic sheen. Although this it looked different in this green light. Twisting and turning the controller, the robot fingers of the manipulator gripped the material, and pulled the one piece jump suit from the case.

It fell out suspended from the robot arm. It was no longer bloody, but the Alien mothers suit was still damaged.

Is that a stylised 'S' ? Abraham had wondered at the crest on the clothes from the outset. The outline was raised. And picked out in shadow. It equally could be described as two funny fish swimming in opposite directions. An Alien glyph. Either way a coincidence. It had to be he decided.

Lionel was comparing the suit to a picture of the clothing taken when it had first been removed from the Alien. Holding the image up the greying redhead compared this photograph to the suit as it was now.

Abe did not. He could remember exactly where and to what degree material had already repaired itself. Starting with the blood stains. It was self cleaning, self repairing. Harvesting material from its environment in lieu of the Solar energy that Cornellius had denied it.

"You're alive." He whispered. "I know it. I know it. I know it."

"What are you mumbling?" Lionel asked.

"Decomposition of the plastic extremities commencing at one metre distant from ARC containment vessel." Abraham informed his employer, reading from a colour CRT screen.

"Releasing material." He added.

The robot hand dropped the white suit onto the head of Aegis Goat.

It hung there, partially covering the skull. The narrow support beneath was not in contact with the alien material. Even so Abraham watched the CRT screen to make sure. The weight of the combination of skull and cloth was constant.

Both men stood still as statues. Neither was sure what was going happen. A camera zoomed in and focused cloth draped skull.

"Right now it looks like a damned art class still life exercise." Lionel laughed.

They waited.

"Activity still negligible." Abraham reported. There had been a fractional change. He noted it, but it was within possible margins of error.

"Shut the case." Lionel instructed. The robot manipulator moved obeying Abraham's directions and the lead lined case closed shutting out the green glow from the ARC material.

"Perhaps the material has been exhausted by exposure to the ARC container." Abraham suggested.

Later when there was still no change. Lionel decided to move to phase two. With a click of rocker switch the standard video revealed a ray of light. Sun's rays funnelled from the distant surface was being reflected down to the subterranean lab. A bean illuminating the white alien cloth and the skull it partially covered.

"There." Abraham yelped at once. He pointed at the monitor. Confirmation of a positive change in combined mass. The Alien material glistened like white gold.

Lionel killed the sunlight.

"Absorption and repair continuing, registering a negative change in the total mass of both objects. Conclusion; the Alien Material is metabolising the artefact.

"Interesting the burst of sunlight was enough to kick start the process." Lionel observed with a self satisfied smile.

He was enjoying this moment as much as Abraham was dreading it.

Lionel took control of a second set of remote manipulators. A robot arm moved toward the experiment. Lionel turned a dial, an the canister in the robot's hand opened remotely, exposing a sizeable shard of ARC material.

The Alien cloth's luminescence dimmed away to almost nothing. Lionel then removed the ARC material from sight, closing the containers remote door. Slowly the cloth brightened again.

Cornellius watched as his employer continued to experiment. Exposing the Alien Cloth to sunlight, and then to the ARC shard, and various combinations of these. All the time measuring and watching.

Abraham sweated in the air conditioned cool of the lab. He mentally noted that suit was almost completely repaired. The white cloth now lay against the sunken Aegis Skull which had been part digested by the Alien material.

"You can't mean to let the suit complete the repairs to itself?"

Lionel turned on him. "Why the hell not." He growled. "I want to know what it does next – what this alien thing will do with the hardest substance on Earth."

"That's crazy." Cornellius said. Aware how weak he sounded.

"Perhaps." Lionel laughed. "But I have an off switch." He laughed. Turning the dial once more he exposed the Alien cloth to the green glow of the ARC material.

His manipulator held a scalpel. It glistened in the green ARC light. Abraham had no way of knowing, but he guessed this was an admantium blade.

Lionel smiled. "Now, let's see if we can cut a piece off the suit."

Jonathan Kent looked at the man who stood before him. Stubble threatening at a beard graced his chin, sideburns that would have made Elvis jealous, and a mop of shaggy hair.

This was no latter day hippy. His clothes were old but had been expensive, they had that worn look that only age and use can give something of quality, the antiques people called it patina, and Jimmy Olsen had it in spades. First impressions were of a young man. The kind that works out, maybe a bit too hard. The little guy making up for his lack of height with width, but Jimmy had old eyes. That's the best description Jonathan had for May when she asked him why he thought the young man was older than the twenty five years he claimed. "Eyes like Coals." He said. "Like my Great Grandpops."

"Mean and ornery – you mean?" May noted.

Jimmy was sitting in their kitchen eating hard. There was an animal nature bristling beneath his whiskers. He just kept it bottled up, but like his chest hair, it wanted to escape from the buttons of his heavy cotton shirt. From the cut of the collar it had been in and out of fashion twice.

"Thank you Maam." He said as May delivered another slice of apple pie. May never tired of feeding folk. Jimmy never tired of eating. He was well mannered when he needed to be. Around May he was like a blast from the past, old school deference. In the field he would curse like soldier.

Jonathan believed Jimmy had served. As an old soldier himself there was something familiar about Olsen – if that was even his real name. When and where, and for who Jimmy had fought, Kent hadn't fathomed. He'd asked, not outright, just leading questions. Invitations for his new hire to open up, but Jimmy was coy about his past. Jonathan respected the man's privacy. The Kent farm had enough secrets of its own. He wasn't going to throw stones a Jimmy for his. Still it made Jonathan think.

"The only person I know with an appetite like this is our boy."

Rielly looked up from the table, and his pie swimming in cream and ice cream. "Pa, I'm not that bad – am I?"  
>Jimmy paused. It was almost odd, his spoon to plate to mouth action had been until then mechanical.<p>

"You are a credit to your mother. A gentleman." Jonathan chuckled rubbing the boys mop of black hair, hair they hadn't needed to cut, ever. A kiss curl fell across his forehead, no matter what May did to control it.

Jimmy returned to his dinner. He wasn't a communicator. Later he would commune with six pack, and a cigar. He drank hard, but Jonathan had found him hard at work each and every morning.

Later as Jonathan let the cool pillow kiss his cheek May said. "Have you seen how Mr Olsen watches our boy."

"No. Does he?"

"Yes." May replied. "But only when he doesn't know I'm watching him."

"You're too suspicious." Jonathan sighed.

"No. We can't be too anything where Reilly is concerned." May replied.

"He's a good worker. I'm not getting any younger." Jonathan said. "What with my touch of Angina, and that extra land I took on last spring – I needed the help."

"I know." May replied.

Jonathan knew too. "Look we needed the extra income, for Reilly's College Fund."

"I know." May said again. She drew close to her husband. They both knew the College Fund was a convenient camouflage for their savings. Money set aside for an special kind of rainy day. The kind that Noah built a boat for, Jonathan mused as sleep took him.


	5. Chapter 5

"Unca' Jimmy." Reilly said. "Why do you smoke?"  
>"Unca' Jimmy." Reilly said. "Why do you drink?"<p>

"Unca' Jimmy..."  
>"Shut the.." Olsen bit his tongue, swallowed the curse and chewed his Cigar. "I mean." He said after another deep breath. "Let me be." He looked to the farm "See that?" He asked. "Miss Fox has just pulled up."<p>

"yeah I heard her car a while back." Reilly sniffed disinterested. Then he said. "Are you mad at me Unca' Jimmy."

"No.

"No more than usual, any way. Less of the questions will ya?"

The farm hand sat on the main limb of downed tree. Partially divided into long lengths. The timber had been left to rest a while and dry. Distant across the fields was the Kent Farm. Beyond was a back drop of mountains that distinguished this fertile farmland in British Colombia from the endless flat expanse of the Kent's native Kansas.

Oslen looked at the boy. Jonathan's and May's adopted child. Truth was all this was alien to him. The whole Earth was.

"Mom says it's bad for you."

"What?" Jimmy growled.

"Smoking. Drinking."

Oslen shook his head. He managed a grunt that passed for a chuckle in his world. At four years old the boy was precocious, searching and always questioning.

"Is it?"

The Kent boy screwed his face, like he was tasting something strange for the first time.

"It is for most people." He said. Then after a long moment of uncharacteristic silence. "But not for you."

"You noticed I got that good healing flesh." Jimmy said.

The boy nodded. "Me too."

Olsen watched the woman the people in this part of the world as Silvia Fox Social Worker, walking their way.

He said to Reilly "Lets just keep this our little secret. Okay kid?"

Reilly nodded again, then winked. A habit he'd picked up from his adoptive father.

It made Jimmy grunt a chuckle. "You're a good kid." He said. A rare smile crossed his face as

Silver Fox crested the gentle incline from the farm.

"Your mother told me you'd be here Reilly." Silver called out to the boy, but she looked Olsen's way. "Run to the house." She told him. "I'll be with you shortly."

Reilly nodded. He moved his head around, scoping the land around them. In motion he was fast almost jerky.

Silver shook her head disapproving, and touched his shoulder. "Quietly and slowly. Remember like I told last time."

"Yes Miss Fox." The Kent boy replied his face petulant. "There isn't anyone any way, just Unca' Jimmy, and he don't count." Reilly added. "He knows I'm special. Just like I know you are special."

Silver bent her knee and crouched to eye level. "See here. You've got to learn. Make this a habit of looking and listening. Remember Reilly you're different, and that means you have to be careful. Other kids get it easy, they only have to remember to look around when the cross the road, you have to remember to stop look and listen always, with every step you take, in everything you do."

Reilly sighed. Looking down he inspected his feet. "Yes Miss Fox."

"You missed your way Miss Fox." Jimmy said. "You should have been a School Ma'am."

Young Kent looked around again saying. "Miss Fox why you don't just kiss Unca' Jimmy?"

"Huh... What did you say?" Silver Fox gasped. Then "James stop it." As Oslen began laugh, deeply.

Reilly frowned. He looked hurt and deflated. "Mom always kisses Pa when she looks at him the way you look at Unca Jimmy."

"Misses nothing, this kid." Jimmy chuckled.

"That maybe." Silver replied. "Reilly Logan Kent there are things you will see and hear. Things people do, things that should not be repeated. People need their secrets, they need privacy."

"He's not _People_." The boy whispered. "He's Unca' Jimmy." Then remembering his mother he ran.

"What do you estimate his speed to be." Silver Fox asked Olsen.

"Now?" Jimmy stood up. "I'd say Carl Lewis would struggle to beat him." He killed his smoke. "God knows where he'll be next year." Grinding the lit end of the cigar against the lumber. "Now my Fox, how about that kiss."

"James." Silver said, her tone full of caution, her eyes said something else. He stepped close.

"Watcha worried about. The coast is clear. Like the kid said." He grabbed her waist.

"Lionel has eyes everywhere."

"Funny thing that." James said as his lips brushed hers. "Lionel's eyes are proving remarkably unreliable. His mouth grazed her cheek, his nose inhaling the scent of her hair, whispering. "They tend to break a lot. Especially at night. Why whole sections of the Kent farm go dark for hours." He bit her ear.

"Like the sensor covering this spot." He added going in for the kiss.

-8-

"Frankly Norman it's not good enough." Lionel Luther said pushing a manila folder to one side across the polished surface of his desk. Stamped on the cover were two words; Project Aegis. "I'm beginning to suspect that your trading on my affection for your dear late father. Tortured soul that he was."

The older man relaxed, trademark Havana cigar in hand leaning back in the large Captain's chair, behind him was a large leaded portrait window through which the expansive formal gardens of the Luthor's New England estate.

Norman Osborn was a young man, blond haired with a short crew cut and intense eyes. He sat on a low armless chair although plush in appearance was both hard and uncomfortable. Lionel's office was oak panelled, and like the house followed the Victorian Gothic style. Shelves lined the walls stacked with row after row of collectors edition volumes of important works of reference and fiction. Over the imposing mantelpiece hung a large Pre-Raphaelite painting of barely clad nymphs prancing about a woodland stream. A fire crackled in the hearth however the high ceilinged room was not hot, even so Norman perspired.

"Mr Luthor, I'm sorry, I don't know why, the units are malfunctioning. I,.. I,... I'll get the team out the Kent farm straight away. I get to the bottom of this, I,.."

Lionel slapped his hand down on the leather arm of his chair interrupting the younger man. Lionel lent across the desk. His mane of red hair flecked with silver fell forward. "This project is too important for your division to screw it up." Lionel's face creased with clear contempt. "Norman my boy, I do hope you have not fallen, I'd hate to see you suffer the way your father did, he was never able to defeat his Demons, but I swore to him that I would look after you and your dear mother," Lionel paused, then added, "how is Kathy?"

"Mother is very well, thank you Mr Luthor." Norman gulped, he had grown up under the shadow of his father's alcoholism, his descent into mindless violence, not least against Kathy and his boyhood self. There was no questioning that Ambrose Osborn's brilliance, but his genius had been tainted by madness. Lionel Luthor had bought Osborn Industries cheaply, his father's firm had been about to go under, bankruptcy a consequence of his father's drunken mishandling of the business. Lionel had brought the competing petrochemical company into the Luthor Corp family.

"Good good, glad to hear that my boy. Send her my love, won't you. Now please prove to me that I was right to play so much trust in you, by living up to your responsibilities." Lionel jabbed the cigar at Norman. "Boy there is a great genius in you, I see it, for God's sake don't squander it like your father did."

Lionel relaxed back into his chair slowly turning round so the red leather back faced Norman indicating that their time together was over. Norman stood up and turned to leave. He heard Lionel speaking to his secretary in the adjoining room by intercom. "Marie please connect me to the Latverian Presidential Palace."

-8-

"I see the telephone engineers are working on the lines again." Jonathan Kent said to James Olsen. In the handful of years that have passed since Jimmy had ridden his Hog into the yard, climbed off the saddle and asked for work. He had changed a jot to look at since that day, however the bluff farmer had grown to trust and above all like the rough diamond Olsen have proven to be.

Even when it had become clear first to May, and then to Jonathan, that Olsen had been holding out on them at the beginning. Then there was his business with Silvie Fox. Jonathan however was no stranger secrets, his time in the army had taught him how necessary deception was part of life.

"It sure seems that way, I guess the lines are pretty unreliable aroundabouts, because they sure seem to breaking all the time." James noted, his round face pulled into a half smile half smirk.

Jonathan Kent nodded. "Yeah always coming and going, must be reason for that, reminds me of Ms Fox."

A silent understanding passed between the two men. James tugged on a cigar. He pulled on a beer. Sunset marked the end of the working day, and Jonathan shared a brew with his friend. He watched Olsen watching. Dark narrow eyes peering from under the dark wide brimmed hat into the distance following the ubiquitous white van painted with a familiar telecoms company logo.

"I was just thinking," Jonathan said, "it must be what, getting up seven years, since you started out here? That's a biblical amount of time for a man who was just passing through."

"What can a guy say?" James replied with a shrug of the shoulders. "Guess I like the way May bakes a fruit pie."

His fingers danced across the rail of the stock fence, tapping three times. Jonathan understood his meaning. There have been three different vans, in as many minutes, marked up with same paint green and orange scheme for 'O-Tel' had driven back and forth along the road to no where, middle of, that ran through the Kent farm.

"What's Reilly doing in the barn?" Jonathan asked, keeping his voice casual, but his grease stained finger nail picked at the beer bottles paper label.

"Cleaning the carburettor on the Indian." Jimmy replied.

" A-Huh." Jonathan smiled. " Just don't let May know, she's opposed to motorcycles on principle."

"Yeah I get that impression every time I bring another one to the barn.

"Do you think it's time, for y'know – that thing?"

"Yeah." Olsen said downing his beer.

Jonathan said. "Right. Thought so. That reminds me there's been something I've been meaning to tell that Silvia Fox." He winked again. "I think I'll just go and call her."

"Yeah about time you gave that interfering woman a piece of your mind." James scraped the earth from his boot on the bottom fence rail. He sniffed. "I know I'd like too.

"Guess I better go and see how Reilly is getting on." Olsen said as Jonathan left for the house.

-8-

Norman Osborn sat framed by the Toronto Skyline, graced by familiar needle that was the CN Tower. Floor to ceiling glass windows made up one wall of the large contemporary office situated in the Canadian Headquarters of O-Tel. A telecoms company that had grown up from the old Osborn Electronics division. O-Tel was a wholly owned subsidiary of Luthor Corp.

Norman's attention was focused on the bank of expensive new generation flat screen monitors that were destined to replace the old style CRTs. He wore a headset, phones and microphone.

The screens showed multiple camera feeds from a rural location.

"Patch that call through to me." He said into the receiver. The sound of a call being placed came over his headphones. A man's voice said. "Ms Fox. This is Jonathan Kent."

"Hello Jonathan. What can I do for you?" Silver Fox replied.

"Just a courtesy call. I wanted to tell you we can't do our usual weekend as scheduled. Can May and I fix another time?"

"Certainly. I hope everything is all right?"

"Oh sure, we're all fine, nothing but good news – you know us country folk we never complain." Jonathan coughed, clearing his throat. "An old Army buddy of mine, Ben Parker is passing through, he's planning to call by."

There was a brief pause. Osborn barely noticed.

"Jonathan, sorry to be a pain, but can I get back to you on this."

"Sure Silvie, you know where we are."

-8-

"How are you getting along there buddy?" James growled. Squatting down beside the grease smeared face of Reilly Kent. The boy was hands on, having fingers that gripped like pliers.

The young boy looked up. "Pretty much done here."

Reilly had grown up around Olsen, he was well used to his prickly personality, besides unlike his parents who were good people, but regular normal people too, Olsen was like him. They were special. Like Silver Fox, or Silvie as she pretended. Reilly was a smart boy, he had to be given the secrets he had to keep from the rest of the world.

Logan patted the old motorcycle. It was part way through a restoration. Still a long way from beautiful.

"You want me to see if she'll turnover?" Reilly asked.

"Your Ma and Pa want to see you." Olsen stood up. "Run on in."

"I'll just wash up." Reilly replied, turning in the direction the old steel utility sink in the corner of the even older barn. Long redundant the red and white timber building had been replaced across the yard by modern machine friendly steel and concrete prefabricated sheds the old barn served as workshop, while the hay loft had been converted into a simple one room apartment in instalments by James as a place to live.

"No, just go on up to the house. Move it kid."

Reilly frowned holding his black oil covered fingers as if to make a point. Then as he watched Olsen bound up the stairs to he old hay loft Reilly realised something was up.

He remembered what he had to do.

Reilly ran steadily, a sprint for anyone else, to the yellow cream British Colombian farm house. He'd been told this day might come, but he'd never wanted to believe it would.

I can't cry he thought. I can't let _them_ know I know.

"Hello son." Jonathan said. He threw him an old towel. Reilly rubbed his hands hard and fast. Almost too fast. He had to think twice, and concentrate.

May Kent sat at her kitchen table. She looked pale. Reilly listened to her pulse and her breathing. His Pa's blood pressure was elevated.

The tap was running filling a large bucket in the Kitchen sink. The Kettle on the stove was whistling loudly as it boiled.

"Now listen to me Reilly." Jonathan said, leaning forward he rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. He spoke quietly, a bare whisper.

"This great strength of yours." He winked – Reilly understood. "You've got to hide _it_ from people – or they'll be scared of you."

Rielly remembered asking his Pa once, why people did such evil things to other people. Jonathan had said, "Well son it's usually because deep down they are scared. An animal will usually run if it can, if it can't even the most timid critter with turn and fight."

That was then this was now, and this now was his goodbye.

Ma Kent took him by the hand. In a whisper almost broken by tears, she said. "When the time is right, you've got to use _it. _You've got to turn and fight. There's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble."

She wiped her eyes. "Lord Above Us." May said loudly. "Turn off the tap Jonathan that ole' bucket is all a over flowing."

"Sure my love. If you'd stop that darn Kettle a whistling." Jonathan replied. His head tilted, eyes fixed on his son gesturing to he door.

Reilly ran.

Outside James was sat on his Harley Davidson, heavy duty lock box pannier were hung either side of the rear wheel, a third large storage chest was fixed above behind the seat.

"Get on boy. We gotta hit the road." Olsen said. He threw a large back pack at Reilly. A normal seven year old would have crumpled under the weight, but Reily just caught it and shrugged it around his shoulders. Then hopping in a smooth motion onto the rear pillion seat of the bike, behind the older man.

James didn't hesitate, he fed in the gas, and the big hog rumbled as the rear wheel snapped for traction, slipping sending up dirt behind them, as he accelerated out of the yard.

-8-

Osborn was shouting down the microphone of his headset. "What do you mean you can't clear up the audio? All I'm getting is the sound of water, and this high pitched whistle."

"Hang on I got that." Norman snapped. "It was the Kettle." He swore and rubbed his cropped blonde hair. On his screen were several video feeds from various camera's arranged in a grid pattern they showed the Kent farm from different angles.

Then he saw the bike in motion.

"Don't tell me that's the boy?" He shouted while jumping to his feet. The leather and chrome executive chair shot backwards away from him on its casters. Norman gesticulated at the screens. "There on the motorcycle with the farm hand." He bellowed down the microphone. Osborn hit the table with his fist. Could it be possible?

The idea frightened him.

Surely the child was just being treat to a joy ride? Norman hoped that this was true as he used his mouse to scroll through the numerous video feeds. There he saw it. The farmhands bike was moving fast. Osborn froze the feed, frame advanced picture by picture, until he got a good image in focus. It was then he saw panniers, and Reilly's large rucksack.

"All teams move in now. Dammit!" Norman roared, spittle flecked his lips. "The target is leaving the farm."

His heart sank like a stone. Could it be possible that the Kents somehow knew about Lionel's plans for the boy? This could all be some unexpected coincidence; but the eavesdropping logs recorded nothing about a planned outing or camping trip. Either way he couldn't disappoint Luthor. Lionel was expecting the boy to be delivered to him on schedule.

"All teams!" He barked across the open line. " Intercept them." Osborn switched to another live feed, this time from a head-cam, video from the helmet of armed man. Part of a team of armoured masked soldiers in black. They leapt from the parked van marked in O-Tel livery, and onto the road. Finding cover, readying an ambush.

"Mr Wilson." Osborne said over the line to their commander. "Target is approaching you on a motorcycle."

"Roger." came the response. "Firing protocol?"

"Unlimited. Get the boy. Tell your men not to worry - bullets won't do him any lasting harm.

"And Mr Wilson, I don't want any witnesses." Osborn said. "You understand me? I just want this done and the boy in transit to the facility as of five minutes ago."

Over the live line the response crackled over the headset. "Affirmative. Lethal force. No problem Sir, it will be my pleasure."


	6. Chapter 6

A patrol car was parked diagonally one across the road blocking the highway. It's lights flashing in the descending night time gloom. A second car had come to a halt, it's progress was interrupted by the impromptu roadblock.

An officer, from the Provincial division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stood beside the driver. He was dressed in blues, with a dark cap.

"Give me a break." The American said shaking his head.

"What's your business Sir?" The cop asked. He had the man's passport, and drivers license, giving the documents a once over.

"Like it says on my Press Card – Perry White, Journalist. Is it a crime for guy to try get to where he is going?"

"Where is that exactly?"

"Err thataway." Perry pointed down the road. Covering his vague answer with a smile.

"As you can see Sir, we've had to close the road."

"For why exactly - I mean what's going on?"

The Cop didn't answer. He wore that polite smile, the kind that says I'm watching you, it isn't personal, it's just my job to be suspicious. "Seems you've come a long way, and from where - let's see, ah, New York, to here, for why?"

Perry shrugged. It was his turn to look nonplussed. "Sorry force of habit. I'm not here on business, truth be told, but to experience your famous Canadian hospitality and your wide-open spaces."

The Officer frowned. "So you're telling me that you know nothing about the incident?"

"What incident?" Perry asked. It was a honest question.

"Okay." The Officer relaxed and returned Perry's documents. "Since you're a visitor to our fair land, I'll tell you what the local news guys already know. There's reports of a shooter, one of yours, taking potshots at passing vehicles."

"An American you mean?" Perry played it cool.

"Ah-huh." The Cop nodded. "He and the wife settled here a few years back. Bought himself a good piece of land settled into farming it. Folk says a nice guy by all accounts."

"This farmer, has he hurt anybody?"

"Not that I've heard. An O-Tel truck was hit, but as you can see this fortunately isn't one of the busiest of roads."

Perry had carried out enough interviews in his life to know when the other guy was done talking.

"Well thanks Officer for your help, I appreciate you telling me why my err little outing has been cut short."

"Sorry Sir for any inconvenience, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay."

Perry nodded his appreciation while waving his hand. Back in his car, he pulled around and drove a short distance until he could no longer see or be seen by the Patrol Car.

Reaching to the passenger seat he opened a black attaché case, sliding both clips left and right, and then in a circular motion. The top of the case sprung open revealing a hidden compartment containing a hidden receiver. Picking up the handset he placed a secure call.

"Charles, this is Perry. Looks like I'm too late. It's already started."

-8-

James rode his motorcycle into a hail of bullets. The shooters were not amateurs. The line of fire was accurate and targeted - at him. He and the boy had left the Kent farm passing two O-Tel trucks parked by the side of the road. James pegged the first van as an observation vehicle. The latter appeared unattended. It was a bad sign.

James sniffed the air and Reilly copied him as he so often did. The scent that assailed the hairy biker's nostrils set his teeth on edge. He gunned the throttle and the Hog surged forwards.

The assassins were tucked in hiding, camouflaged behind cover. Shrubs and trees that bordered the road. It was an ambush. James figured his best bet was to push it, drove hard and fast through the shooters and out the other side.

The smell of gunpowder and blood was in the air, his blood.

Bullets slammed into them both, yet despite this Reilly remained quiet. Silent he hung onto the bike, barely breathing, as if he didn't need too. The kid had a cool head and shoulders, James wondered what he was thinking.

He guessed. "This is a hell of a way Kid to find out that your bullet-proof."

As they rolled through the kill zone a small voice whispered. "You're not."

Shots now came from behind them.

"My old bones like lead." James replied. "You'll see."

Bullets slammed into the back of the bike, puncturing the panniers and shredding Reilly's backpack. Clothes peeped through the tares.

"Come on old girl." James spat. The Hog roared, and the sound of gunshots dwindled.

They almost made it, but there was one last operative waiting. He'd run further down the road. Several hundred yards from the main team.

A shell shredded his front tyre, the bike lurched, James pitched over into a slide. Reilly rolled free.

"Run boy!" James shouted as pushed the motorcycle clear hopping quick to one foot shaking the other leg. The twisted limb cracked and fell straight within the ripped bloody jeans. Bullets popped out of his flesh like stones squeezed from a cherry. James raised his hands, knuckles forward, as if ready to box his way out of trouble. Trouble came in the shape of a black clad assassin.

"Wilson you might wear a mask to hide the ugly mug of yours, but you can't hide the smell."

"And here I was thinking I had been smart by standing downwind of you."

"Yeah, well it wasn't enough." James growled. "Are you going to waste more bullets" He asked. "Or are you going to do this old school?"

Wilson laughed, the sound muffled by his mask. He threw down the assault rifle. "I think I was out anyway." He drew a Katana from a scabbard hung across his back. "Time to _terminate_ you James."

"You reckon bub." Olsen snarled and leapt. "Snikt" Claws erupted from his hands, three bony barbs one protruding between each knuckle.

Wilson caught James with cutting up thrust, but not before Oslen's six lengthy claws ripped through the assassins shoulders and chest. Slicing through the black body armour, the Kevlar was just enough to prevent James from eviscerating Wilson.

Olsen smashed his head down with such force that bone cracked. His face discoloured, blood spurted. Wilson was still moving, but now he staggered. The Terminator's sword slid through James' chest seeking his heart. But his legs gave way. Both men went down. Wilson screamed in rage, and carried the shorter man over his head. Sword scraping and taking hold against bone, until weight and momentum pulled the blade free, dropping Olsen face down on the asphalt.

Wilson staggered to his feet, leaning on his sword. "Going to take your head." He gargled.

"Take this." James said as he lashed out with his right rolling away from the blade as it fell. His left hand held his insides in place, with the other he used his claws. James slashed at Wilson's femoral artery. Opening three cuts all the way to the bone of the assassins leg. Using his claws against the other man's femur for purchase James pulled himself upright, as best he could, while forcing Wilson to the road. Olsen stamped on his opponent's head breaking the assassins' Kevlar helmet and cracking the pavement with his skull.

"That's for my motorcycle bub."

James sniffed the air. He he heard a woman's scream. He heard the boy run. Olsen swore, the curse rasped across his lips, leaving speckles of blood. James spat red flem, and holding himself together, one set of claws acting as an impromptu suture, he half ran, half stumbled, back towards the Kent farm.

All the while sniffing, tasting the air.

Grimacing James pulled his claws free from the already binding wound. Blood loss at all but stopped. His rate of accelerated healing was unparalleled, at least among Earth-men.

With each agonising step, each lengthening stride, Olsen moved faster, his gait less awkward. He broke into a run and then sprint closing the distance between the road and the house, his booted feet pounding the fields underfoot as he took the most direct course diagonally back to the farmyard.

As he leapt the familiar creosote tainted wooden fence and equally familiar scent reached him.

"Creed." He growled.

Silver Fox drove along a dirt track with no thought given to mechanical sympathy.

Her passenger winced. "Last time I had a ride like this I was running from the Russians in Afghanistan."

Richard Parker was a former captain in the United States Army Special Forces. Early thirties a handsome but married according to his file; a CIA operative.

"So, you know what you're getting yourself into?" She asked him.

"Your driving or the mission?" Parker asked hanging onto the grab handles, his knuckles white.

The Jeep Cherokee bounced and lurched as she accelerated across the uneven surface. The SUV groaned and complained but that she pressed on even harder. She had reconnoitred this track during her earliest visits to the Kent farm. It enabled her to avoid the main road and unwanted attention.

"What has Nick told you?" Silver Fox asked.

"My orders were to visit Vancouver. From there call on an old friend of my brother who lives in out in the sticks."

"Then you know why Fury asked you to do this."

"Plausible deniability." Richard said. "My family connection. "My older brother served with the target's father, a farmer called Jonathan Kent. Fury sent me to help you with this extraction because my being here is explicable. Canada is friendly but still a foreign power " Parker stated. "Or at least that was to be my cover story, but I get activated early. You know the rest, we meet up and I give you the keys to my truck."

She said. "My car wouldn't have made it this far."

"No kidding." Richard said.

Silver Fox had driven hard and fast from Vancouver shaving precious minutes off the usual one-hour journey time.

"I assume something has changed in the mean time?" Richard suggested.

"Yes yes you could say that." She confirmed.

"Okay -so what do I need to know?"

"How old is your boy?"

Richard frowned. "Peter, he's just six months old – I assume you know that Ms Fox - I'm guessing you've read my file. Why Bring my son into this?"

"Our target for extraction is called Reilly. He is seven years old. You know that much. What you don't know is that I've known this kid since he was no older than your Peter. That I've spent those years making sure he's been stable living in a loving home, nurtured and protected from all this for as long as it was possible to do so. I'm telling you this so you understand that I'm personally invested in the outcome of this mission."

Parker nodded. "Okay I appreciate the heads up, but tell me if this kid is so important why doesn't the Agency arrange to have the this family taken into protective custody? Because right now this smacks of an inter-agency spat."

Silver Fox nodded. "Back in the 1940's shortly after World War II President Truman created a special and very secret oversight committee codename Majestic Twelve. The Roswell incident had convinced him that the United States of America must protect itself against the great unknowns; the mutant, the supernatural, and the extraterrestrial threats. Drawing its members from the key players in the industrial military complex, the presidential order placed number of top-secret programs under the remit of this committee. Since the late sixties Lionel Luthor has held the chair of Majestic Twelve."

"And you work for Luthor Corp?"

"Specifically I work for Weapon X. One of MJ12's legacy projects. I needed to be in close proximity to Lionel to get a good read on this thoughts."

"You're a telepath." Parked concluded.

Fury has chosen well, Silver Fox thought, this agent is taking all this in his stride. He's a brave man this Richard Parker. "I'm glad that it doesn't bother you." She said.

Parker shrugged. "You're not the first Stargate operative I've worked with."

The Stargate Project was the CIA's clandestine Extra Sensory Perception division.

She continued saying. "Lionel isn't easy to read. We knew he was getting ready to move, but I wasn't able to determine exactly when."

"And that when is now." Richard said. "What kind of opposition can we expect?"

"The best Mercenaries a Billionaire government backed socio-path can buy."

Parker nodded, hiding his appropriate fear as a professional must do. "Just a walk in the park then."

She pointed over the wheel at a line of trees and a wire fence. "That's the boundary of the Kent farm."

"What do they know?"

"They're on board. This operation was brought forward when Jonathan Kent contacted me in code."

Parker nodded.

"Jonathan is ex-military, as you know. May is a housewife. However the good news is we have a deep cover, very special agent embedded with the Kent's. With luck he's already got the boy out, that was his default mission if everything went south all of a sudden."

"I get it." Parker replied. "We're plan b."

She nodded. "Something like that."

Abandoning the truck Silver Fox silently pointed out the perimeter of Lionel's hidden surveillance grid using hand signals. Taking the lead she used her unique extrasensory perception to pick a safe path through the buzz of electronic field created by the web of sensors and cameras. Parker followed her, staying on her six, as ordered. They weaved through the woodland that bordered the gentle rise that overlooked the Kent farm.

She signalled him to wait as they crouched under cover looking down at the yellow painted farmhouse. Below a parked O-Tel, it's headlights on full beam lit up the farm yard, disgorged a black clad assault team.

"I think the chickens have already flown the coop." She whispered with a smile.

Reilly hid by the side of the road. He saw James transformation. He knew Olsen was special, and about his remarkable superhuman senses; he possessed his own. It was something he had shared with his uncle growing up. Reilly Kent had also seen what lay hidden beneath Jimmy's chunky forearms. Even so it was another thing entirely to watch the bone claws extend, cutting through the flesh of the man's hands; to hear James growl like a beast, and to watch that beast pounce.

For a moment Kent considered joining the fray. Especially as James face planted the road, gravely wounded. However Reilly found his attention pulled away from the brutal battle between the sword wielding assassin, the self-styled terminator, and his but-not-really uncle. It wasn't the sound of the approaching boots on the ground that alarmed him. It stood to reason the other shooters, the Terminators team, would be coming this way.

Rather it was his mother's scream. May's distant cry carried across the fields, and reached his super-sensitive ears.

Kent ran harder than it ever done before, eating the distance cross-country, fast across the cropped terrain, faster than a Cheetah could bound over the African Savannah.

"Don't you dare hurt him." May cried out.

An O-Tel van lit up the farm yard, armed men, equipped like those who had ambushed James and him minutes before, were spread out in pairs, surrounding the house and out buildings. Kent concentrated. The yellow painted exterior walls disappeared. Walls were no barrier to him, among his earliest memories was the wonder of seeing what lay inside their cows swelling bellies, watching these calves grow and then be born.

Kent used this super sight to peer into the interior of his home.

Jonathan's face was twisted in pain and his Pa was turning blue. He faced May Kent, immobilised. A broad hand had grabbed him from behind, long fingers squeezing at his throat. Lifting the older farmer bodily off the floor so his toes barely touched the ground.

The kitchen door opened. On of the soldiers stepped inside. "Perimeter secured Captain Creed."

"Hold your positions." The big man ordered. "I've got this." The soldier paused, glancing around before nodding and closing the door behind him.

Creed was dressed more casually than his men, a long duster coat, and a wide brimmed hat sat atop of mane of blond hair that tumbled around Creed's shoulders, while a stubble beard framed his thin lips. Grinning, he dangled Jonathan Kent in front of his wife like puppet, and as he laughed Creed flashed predatory teeth characterised by oversized canines.

He towered over May, he was easily six foot six. "Where is the boy?" The blond man demanded.

Kent was a few hundred metres from the farmhouse, but seconds away and closing.

"Coming." He hissed.

"Where is he?" Creed asked again. A single nail extended cat like from his forefinger of the hand wrapped around Jonathan Kent's neck, it continued to slide, extending a couple of inches of curved claw scraping his Pa's skin until it drew blood.

Creed was special too. Now Reilly Kent could see into him, he saw the viscous claws hidden in both his hands and feet, along with the extra layers of dense muscle and heavy bone.

The first Creed's troops knew of Reilly Kent's arrival was a resounding crash. Bringing their guns to bear at the sound, they turned to see that a boy sized hole had been punched through the house directly into the kitchen.

Inside Kent slammed into his Pa's captor. He hit the large man's arm striking up at the elbow.

The joint popped, and broke. Jonathan Kent slipped from the Creed's grasp and fell to the floor gasping for breath.

Meanwhile the large man staggered backwards. He roared in pain and anger. Colliding with the plate rack and dresser bringing May's best crockery crashing down around him.

"Shouldn't have done that kid." Creed spat.

There was a cracking noise, the burly blond man flexed his broken arm. His face was a mask of pain, but the limb straightened.

Reilly could see the torn muscle and ligament knitting together, healing as he watched.

"Boy I know how to hurt you." Creed told him.

"Don't." May cried out.

"Lionel said you might prove awkward. Said you might learn some bad habits from your Pa. So he gave me a little something to slow you down."

Reilly didn't really follow what Creed was saying, but he knew a threat when he heard one.

With that Creed threw the kitchen table at May. Reilly responded instinctively, putting himself between the makeshift weapon and his adoptive mother, blocking the attack and sending this piece of furniture careering to one side. Smashing through the open plan space to the living room bouncing over the couch and into into the fireplace.

It was plenty of time for the inhumanly fast assailant to reach into his pocket and breakout what looked like a shiny tin can. Which cracked open in his hand revealing its contents to be a luminescent green crystalline pebble.

His attacker smiled as he witnessed the promised effect. Reilly collapsed to his knees, shaking, breathing hard, racked with nausea. Suddenly he felt pain. So this is what it is like to hurt was his first thought. His second thought was a memory, this was not the first time he had experienced this pain.

His assailant held up the green pebble betwixt his taloned thumb and forefinger. "It's like an on off switch." Creed laughed. Striding closer he squatted down bringing the pebble within inches of the boys face. Kent sank into a foetal position.

Images began to fill his mind. Confusing memories.

"Please stop!" May gasped. "Please don't do this."

"You heard her." Jonathan shouted. He was pointing a service revolver at the big man. Retrieved from it's hiding place under the sink.

Reilly could hear Creed laughing. The room was spinning for him as the big man placed the glowing green pebble next to him on the floor. Standing up Creed turned and stepped towards Jonathan Kent.

The service revolver barked. Click, repeat, bang, click, repeat, bang. So it went on until the gun just clicked. Creed's hat fell to the floor, his face bled from two wounds, his chest from four. He didn't bleed for long however, as the wounds healed and closed.

Creed reached out and grabbed his Pa by the throat, this time he squeezed quick and hard. With a twist of his wrist Creed snapped the farmers neck. Jonathan Kent slumped to the floor of his kitchen, his feet and legs jerking and twitching in in his last death throes.

May Kent screamed. It was a long desperate agonised cry. She swayed grabbed counter-top for support, then she picked up a broom. Shaking it she said. "You bastard, I'll kill you." His mother screamed.

Creed smiled as if the thought of her attacking him was delicious. Then he turned his back on her as much to say he didn't give a damn. Creed laughed too, as he watched Reilly Kent struggle to his knees with tears of grief streaming down his cheeks.

"Angry boy?" He asked. Leaning forward saying. "That's it kid, use the rage, let it take you, let it feed you, ignore the hurt, push through the pain. I'm I'm here waiting for you, waiting for your best shot." Creed even beckoned with his clawed fingers, saying come to me.

Inside Reilly Kent something snapped, anger burned in the young boys agonised mind. he was consumed with righteous vengeance. Creed had killed his Pa.

He let out a cry. Even in his weakened state, the high pitched boyish scream, shook the house and shattered glass.

"Jaw Hell?" Creed responded. "What the f..."

Creed didn't get a chance to finish what he was saying. Two things happened in short succession. May Kent lashed out with the broom, but not at Creed, rather she used the brush like a hockey stick, sending the pebble flying out of the hole in the kitchen wall. It sailed outside into the dark of night.

He felt the change, it was like Creed had said to him moments before, but this time the switch was flicked back on.

Red light burst from his eyes, two beams of hot searing energy. One bisected Creed's skull cutting through his right eye, exiting the other side demolishing that side of his face, and taking out the upper quarter of his skull. Cauterising the wound as it did so, leaving a black and bloodless hole and filling the room with the smell of burnt meat. The second beam struck the internal wall directly behind Creed, burning through the entire property. Along its course a series of fires began.

Outside the sound of automatic gun fire thundered and flashed in the night air.

Richard Parker saw the shadowy figure leap the fence, moving so quickly as to be little more than a blur he fell on top of two armed men, they went down hard, and they didn't get up again.

The silent killer leapt forward once more, this time through hostile fire, he didn't slow, or even stumble, instead the shooting stopped, and two more men fell.

Parker guessed this must be the deep cover for very well for the special agent embedded with the Kents.

"Let's go." Silver Fox told him. They came out shooting.

There was no question the Native American had a full compliment of field skills in addition to her special abilities. She aimed her gun into the shadows, bringing down a hidden enemy.

"You have eyes in the back of your head." He gasped as they made it too the Farmhouse steps.

"I have eyes everywhere." She replied.

There was the sound of a stifled scream from the barn.

"James will finish up out here." Silver Fox said.

"James is good." Richard noted.

"Yes, he's the best at what he does." She replied, then kicking open the back door, she pointed her automatic through the opening. A split second later she was shooting.

Richard aimed at her target.

Silver Fox screamed. "Victor Creed!" It was a shout laced with anger and clear loathing.

He didn't fire. Silver Fox was shooting at a dead man.

Parker reassessed that assumption. Creed had lost a section of his skull. Currently his partner was unloading the best part a clip into his vital organs. All that said he was moving of his own volition, turning to them, a horrid rumbling came from out his mouth that hung open dribbling.

"Get the target." Silver Fox shouted at him. Pausing for a second or so to reload a new clip with practised speed.

Richard saw the Kent boy was with his mother, over by the stove, their arms wrapped around each other. There was a crackle from the opposite wall, a black charred hole was growing as a translucent flame flickered hungrily. Through the open plan lay out he saw the Kitchen table was at an angle into the fireplace.

"Mrs Kent, I need you to come with me." He said.

"You're with Silvie?" May croaked.

"I'm with Ms Fox. We have a vehicle at the boundary of your property." He told them. "Can you make it that far."

"I can carry her." The Kent boy replied.

Before Richard could answer he heard a roar.

Victor Creed had risen, he was on all fours, crouched like an animal, the sounds emanating from his mouth between his over long canines reinforced the bestial impression. His head was still broken – only not as broken as it had been.

Richard processed this observation, he determined why Silver Fox had been shooting at the apparently dead man. He didn't stay dead.

Reilly Kent pushed past Parker. Richard tried to hold him, but the boy shrugged him off as if Parker were the child. "Take my Ma out of here." He demanded.

"I.." Richard began to protest.

"Now." Said the Kent boy. His eye's glowing red.

Creed leapt at Silver Fox, and the boy leapt at Creed.

Parker grabbed hold of May and dragged her through the living room towards the front door. Her eyes were red with tears, and her breath panicked. Across from them the boy and Victor Creed had disappeared through the internal wall of the house, the smaller locked onto the larger, collectively a violent wrecking ball of scrapping muscle. Silver Fox picked herself up out of the dust and broken dry wall. Parker beckoned to her. Fox didn't need telling twice. Around them the entire house shook as Creed and the Kent boy tumbled outside and into the dark.

Parker ran clear from the front door. He watched amazed as the Kent boy punched Victor Creed. The large man staggered back into the beams of the O-Tel's Vans headlights, phased by the force of the child's blow. His skull wound had closed around his burnt out socket, into a mass of red scar tissue, which was already bristling with stubby blond hairs. His claws lashed out, back and forth. Reilly Kent's clothes were already ribbons, but in the panel van lights, Richard saw his small frame was uncut. The speed and ferocity of the fight was mind blowing, as the child rained punches into the huge near three hundred pound man. Creed's boots ripped apart by his extending talons, which scrambled for grip ploughing into the ground.

Only a few seconds had passed. Parker struggled to follow their motion. Creed perhaps by instinct, or long ingrained martial training had the edge, his movements were more controlled despite the appearance of bestial rage, while the child fought without reason and total abandon.

Kent's eyes flashed red, and raw fire bit at Creed's chest, setting him alight, there was flame, Creed roared in pain. Parker in that moment realised how Creed had received his deep head wound, but this time the damage to Creed was more superficial. Richard reasoned this second incredible optical blast from the child must have been weaker than the first, and he guessed the boy was tiring. His instincts proved correct when Creed seized hold of Kent in his clawed hands. Creed rolled forward in a cat like pounce, drove both his feet into the boy. The bigger man propelled the child with his legs into the windscreen and hood of the parked panel van, there was crash of breaking glass and bang as metal deformed and twisted.

Reilly Kent disappeared into the crushed vehicle. Its headlights dimmed, one failed.

Creed rolled to his feet and savoured the moment, but not for long. There was still the other operative in play. The man Silver Fox had called James.

Beside him May called out to her son. Richard held her back, as James hit Victor Creed. Parker saw his claws. like six bony daggers sink into the bigger man time and time again. Creed's berserker rage had been met in kind, and it appeared very personal.

In the distance there was the sound of sirens. Richard looked out across the fields to the main road and saw the red and blue flashing lights of emergency responders. Only minutes and less away.

"Cops." He said, bringing Silver Fox's attention to the approaching vehicles.

She called out to James. "Logan."

Richard didn't know if it was his name, or a codeword. James looked up from his work. He was red from head to foot in the other man's blood. Creed was butchered on the ground, sliced and diced. It was impossible Parker thought for the big man to be alive, but given what he'd already seen, Richard did not discount the possibility.

From the panel van came the sound of metal being bent aside.

Parker was beyond surprise now. He watched Reilly Kent emerge, his eyes glowed red again, in the uncanny way Parker had seen earlier in the Kitchen. The Kent house had meanwhile been wrecked, and the fire had taken a complete hold. Flames were fast consuming the once pretty yellow painted home.

The Kent boy saw the bloody pulp that had been Victor Creed, in the light of his burning home, and his shoulders slumped. It was like watching a balloon deflate.

"Uncle Jimmy..?" He said to the man called James. His voice cracking.

Bloodied, his claws gone, James nodded. "I know buddy. I'm sorry, your Pa was a good man."

May ran and embraced her boy. There were tears, but all the while the sirens were growing closer.

Richard assessed the situation. He turned to Silver Fox.

"Get them out of here." He said, pointing to James, May and her son. "I'll stay here and distract the the Local Law Enforcement."

She looked at him. "Thank you Richard Parker."

"Shut up and hit me with something, and make it look good." He said.

So she did.


	7. Chapter 7

Stephen Strange, Doctor of the Occult practised behind the walls of the Sanctum Sanctorum, Bleecker Street, Geenwich Village, New York.

There were many taller buildings on Manhatten Island, but few older than this two story dwelling. Extended and refurbished in the nineteenth century, the interior was Victorian Gothic Revival. A later third story addition nestled within the confines of the hipped roof, dated by the Art-Deco stained glass central circular light. Converted just before the birth of Stephen Strange; child protégée, teenage Medical Doctor, becoming Mister Stephen Strange FRCS, practising as Surgeon specialising in the impossible out of Harley Street London, Tuesday to Thursday, catering to the vanity of the rich and famous in the heyday of the swinging sixties. Before jetting back for a long working weekend, across the Atlantic to New York's Presbyterian Hospital and the Columbia University Medical Centre, pioneering the latest advances in neurosurgery. Stephen Strange became a very wealthy individual, and notorious amongst the powerful and influential.

He was a driven man and he liked to drive. The E-type's tyre blew out as he braked down from its v-max. He was lucky to survive the crash.

His hands were broken, the nerves damaged. The world renowned surgeon was presented with an unpalatable truth by his colleagues whom he regarded as lesser men. Strange would never wield a scalpel again.

"You can still do so much without your hands" they told him, but vanity overcame all wise counsel, and against advice of his colleagues, Stephen travelled the world, and spent most his wealth, seeking a cure. A search that became ever the more desperate; his condition worsened, his dexterity deteriorated. With rational hopes all but gone he turned to irrational faith. Finally in the highlands of Tibet, Stephen found his answer.

Three decades had passed since he had lunched with Andy Warhol. Travelling widely Strange always returned home to New York's colourful Grenwich Village. Stephen had aged gracefully, white temples gave him a certain kind of dignity and magic gave him unnatural vitality. Stephen's face was free of age lines, and he was stronger today than he'd ever been. He hovered, cross legged, inches of air betwixt him and the polished floor. Before him in this Chamber of Shadows atop the old brick built house, he attended the Orb of Agamotto. This Scriers ball of crystal that betrayed its power suspended unsupported above the floor. As the Supreme Sorcerer of the Earthly Realm, Strange, Doctor of the Occult searched for the subtle signs of unforeseen change. In the shadow-lands of Prophecy, in the dark unknowns of the near future where the light of prescience had not shone, where fates were fluid and subject to momentary change. Strange sought agitation in the ether, the invisible veil between disparate realities that separated the mortal waking world from these other realms of dreams.

Geography was of no consequence for the eyes of one so empowered with magical sight, focused through the unearthly sphere. So it was he drifted far from the East Coast of the United States, back towards the cradle of civilisation.

There in the Mediterranean basin frothed a growing disturbance. Unmissable it grew stronger becoming a boiling pot hissing in the hidden dark, emerging into the visible as a steaming mist, smoke on the water. Repulsing all, and in a sea as busy as the Mediterranean this was no mean trick. Such an enchantment screamed of powerful old magic, long lost, returning from the former Golden Age of man. It was a signature Stephen recognised.

What could have awakened this aeon long sleeper?

A cold hand of fate gripped his innards. This could bode nothing good.

Strange saw shapes in the mist, an island chain, with golden beaches, so like any of many; the some six thousand outcrops that stood proud of the Aegean's waters, and yet these isles were so very different. Concealed invisible and separated from the Earthly realm for three millennia. Now the magical enveloping mist rolled from the chief Island's tall peak, across the Agean, as the hidden paradise emerged visible to Stephen's all seeing eye, and into his Earthly realm.

"Themyscira." Stephen gasped. Then his brow furrowed. "Why in the name of all that is holy would this thing happen now?" He gasped, staring deeper into the Crystal Sphere, searching for answers.

Something or someone had stirred the long dormant interest of Olympus.

Time sped past as he searched in ever widening circles away from the mystic islands.

So it was his eyes were drawn to a glimmer, a passing spark of no apparent consequence. Something within him stirred a sense of disquiet tinged by curiosity, one that pulled him south across the African coast, and into the hot desert sands of Libya. Dry dirt gave way to the darkness of the rocky Earth's mantle. Stephen's eyes danced past the cleverly laid obfuscations, simple but well-made enchantments constructed in the web of steel reinforcing concrete of a buried bunker.

The pattern was familiar to him, like a psychic fingerprint, it was also a page from recent history, a page that Strange had not imagined revisiting.

Alarmed he dove deeper. Thrusting into the interior in his Astral form.

The vision now changed. Light exploded within the Crystal spheres confines in a way that threatened to illuminate every corner of this the Chamber of Shadows. Strange's Cloak of Levitation billowed out and around the Sphere protectively, the Amulet around his neck awakened the eye at its centre opening. So the Sorcerer Supreme constrained the maelstrom of magical energies that had become a perfect storm in miniature around the Orb.

Images flashed before the Doctor of the Occult's eyes, an impossible sight; the broken skull of the unbreakable Aegis Goat.

Zeus' prize had been usurped and defaced, his triumph debased. Could this hubris have aroused the olden gods from their slumber?

Then Stephen sensed something else. Like a foul stench, a bitter taste, strong and acrid in his throat, green like an unripe fruit.

Then cutting through the brilliance Strange witnessed the source of this unnatural light. It was crystalline perfection. An armoured suit made from what appeared to be diamond. It was unearthly, that is to say, he knew it was literally alien, not of this world.

Pulling back in surprise, he glimpsed the architect of this place, the long haired countenance of Lionel Luthor.

"Package the artefacts." He snapped. "We're going back States-side."

The old man was unmistakable. His face graced the business sections of leading international newspapers.

Stephen was bowled over by darkness and deceit something profound, ancient and very evil laid at the heart of this matter and the agent of this darkness was the head of Luthor Corp. Now he understood how and why the bunker had been constructed with this familiar magical efficiency. This was the signature of an old organisation whose agents had crossed the world over in the years of his childhood, a force for evil that had risen to power in the economic turmoil of the global depression that had wrecked the thirties giving rise to war.

"Thule-Gesellschaft" Strange whispered.

He stared at the red haired Luthor, his flame hair now silvered by grey. A terrible conclusion crossed the Mages mind. It did not bear thinking about.

Rising from his cross legged position to his full height, Strange raised his hands to his temple; the action was a ritual, his change in stance part of the process.

His thoughts extended beyond his mortal shell, riding on the force of his magical aura, they sailed through the ether in search of a unique intellect, possessing a powerful telepathic signature.

His astral form had not far to travel, crossing the city to Westchester County and out into the rural North East. Seeking out a well-guarded residence.

"Alexander Charles Luthor." He repeated the call.

The response came through strongly as a thought given voice. "Stephen I no longer go by that name. I have not done so since my first day at Oxford." Then the telepath added more softly. "Please call me Charles."

Strange settled his astral self into a chair in the well-appointed study of this Scottish Baroque Westchester Mansion. Stephen knew the powerful Mutant Human, Homo Superior, would be able to perceive his ethereal form with all the clarity of flesh and blood. He noted the details around him, the highland scenes portrayed on canvas and in water colour. _Charles_ had retained a lasting affection for Scotland.

"Forgive me Charles, it has been a long time since we last spoke, and I find my Astral self is all the more literal when it comes to matters of fact" Strange said.

"The fact of the matter is I have elected to choose my own name." Charles countered.

"We all strive to be greater than the sum of our biology and our experiences." Stephen said. "I see you have taken not only your mother's surname; Xavier, but also her family seat."

Charles nodded. "And her genetic legacy" He said, running his hands over his hairless head, seated in a metal wheel chair, the legacy of an old and terrible accident.

"Lionel was left frustrated." The younger man noted "when he was unable to seize all of her fortune after her death, when so much of it came to me."

"Still atoning for the sins of your father?" Strange asked.

"Of all our fathers. Some one must think of the children." Charles said pressing his fingers together. "They are the future."

Strange nodded. "Indeed your work here has much promise."

"So say the runes?" Charles asked.

Strange did not give an answer verbal or otherwise.

The door opened. "Professor?" A gangly youth, long limbed peeked around the door.

"I'll be with you shortly Hank." Charles replied.

Stephen read in the ether, the mystic aura of Hank McCoy. The Sorcerer Supreme saw an exceptional mind and athlete. He saw adolescence had brought on-going and increasingly radical changes to Hank's physiology. Seeking answers McCoy had found the Xavier School for the Gifted.

Hank looked around. The Doctor of the Occult was invisible to him, yet something instinctive caused Hank to stare in the direction of Strange's avatar.

Once the young man had closed the study door, Charles Xavier nee Alexander Luthor, came to the point asking. "Stephen, is this about my brother?"

"No, Marco remains where I sent him." Strange answered leaning forward "Tell me Charles how good is your ancient Greek?"

"It has been a while." The bald man frowned. "Why?"

"I may have need of your skills." Strange admitted "Your natural telepathy can cross, unopposed, boundaries erected against the magics _my_ sorcery employs." Stephen paused. "You seem troubled my friend. Does my appearance here open to many old wounds?"

"Stephen I shan't pretend otherwise, but I am troubled for another reason. Indeed I thought at first, that it was I who had inadvertently called you, bringing you here. For you were present in my thoughts tonight."

"Mystery upon mystery" Strange noted. "What would make you call upon your brother's jailer once more?"

Charles shook his head. "I hold no malice, or resentment toward you. What was done was necessary; Marko was unstoppable in his crazed state." Then he lent forward. "Are you familiar with the mythology of the Star-Child?"

"It seems we have arrived at the same place but from different directions."

"You perhaps speak of Asteria – the starry one?" Charles concluded.

"And you her counterpart from beyond the heavens Aster?"

"It seems so. An infant that presents as human was retrieved from an isolated crash site in the Canadian wilderness."

"A mutant?"

"An alien I had a trusted ally, an investigative Journalist, chasing up a lead in British Columbia."

"Ah yes the columnist, writes the Daily Planet page in the New York Bugle – Perry White, as I recall. I presume this alien's mind is not open to you?"

Charles laughed. "Is everything I am so transparent to the Sorcery Supreme's gaze?"

"Some things are very well hidden, even from me."

"Meaning?"

"The Star-Child's existence." Stephen admitted.

"Lionel is a genius at deceit." Charles confirmed the elder Luthor's part in this. Bitterness crept into his voice.

"More so than either of us realised." Stephen agreed.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I don't believe your father is who he pretends to be."

"That much is known..."

"No Charles, I don't mean the false sincerity, the charitable works, the front he presents as a businessman, or the work he does for the United States government."

"What then?"

"I don't believe Lionel Luthor's biography. He wasn't trapped holidaying in Europe by the War, and I don't believe he escaped the Nazi's clutches. Rather I think he returned to America as a willing captive."

Charles saw the Sorcerer's meaning. "You imply the stories of fighting with the resistance and aiding the allies are a smoke screen. That he in fact was working for the Axis?" Xavier asked.

"I'm sure of it."

"In what capacity?" Charles demanded. "What did he know that made him so valuable as to get a free pass like Wernher von Braun and the others?" His eyes strayed to a framed photograph of three young people. Strange recognised each of them. A young Charles arm in arm with an old girlfriend, beside his former best friend, an intense young man called Erik Lehnsherr. Behind them the dramatic landscape of the Holy Land.

Strange replied with one heavily loaded word "Hydra."


	8. Chapter 8

The next few hours became a blur in the mind of Reilly Kent.

James had thrust a change of clothes at him. The military surplus gear was too big, a sloppy fit, but it sufficed. Replacing his tattered rags left over from his encounter with Victor Creed.

His uncle by association hadn't given him time to pause and think; rather he'd insisted they run for the trees.

Tall dark and black against the night, but to his eyes this world was anything but colourless - sure it was many a different shade, a different set of hues; his night vision merged with his perception of frequencies otherwise invisible. As incredible as this ability was, to him it was pedestrian. This was just the way he'd grown up seeing the world.

No, what was unusual was the gaping hole inside of him, or at least that was the way he felt. Kent wasn't accustomed to losing his mental focus; he was known as a serious child, the kind that becomes a nerd or a geek given time, but tonight his young heart was fit to burst with grief. The death of the only father he had known was tearing him apart. Leaving behind May, the only mother he had known, meant he was unable to share with her their grief, their collective loss. The boy was unable to feel her touch or revel in the familiarity of the reassuring smell of her. All this was denied him.

"Who's doing this?" Kent had asked.

"Luthor." Had been James' terse reply.

It had been a long journey for the boy, from babe in May's arms to here and now. Living, learning, and coping. He'd always known the day might come when he'd have to run; Ma and Pa hadn't hidden that from him, saying because people were scared of his great strength, his unique abilities, the things that made him different, they might come for him. Tonight those people had a name. "Luthor." The boy had never imagined that maybe-day would be a night like this.

The stench of Victor Creed, the stink of gunpowder, the red iron taint of blood in the air, the smell of his home burning. His dead Pa. He didn't so much leave it all behind but rather he carried it with him, his eidetic memory holding onto the tragedy in uncompromising detail.

James Olsen ran ahead into the woods. His relentless pace never breaking, demanding the young boy followed suit, all the while knowing that he could. Kent couldn't pretend, he couldn't get one past his ever vigilant protector.

James led, leaping headlong into a wide river that crossed their path. The boy followed and the cold darkness embraced him. Languishing in the riverbed as it meandered quietly south.

Sure his heart wanted to stop, it wanted him to curl up and sob, but his head had other ideas. He was remembering dreams, memories from a time when his senses were less acute. From a time before any normal child should remember, but now he did.

Images of another place. Red Sun - red sky; white glassy towers with golden detailing. Closer the brilliance of blue robes with scarlet cloaks. Closer still two faces above him so familiar. The warmth of their unconditional love; but then came a bitter taste. His gut full of pain, around him was something dark cold and green.

I'm not normal, Kent thought, kicking out of the water like a dolphin taking to the air, making foot fall among the trees on the other side, following the shadow that was James, thinking, but neither is he. James was a Mutant.

What am I? Kent wondered.

They ran through the night, moving through the wooded terrain to higher ground and greater isolation. Kent wasn't sure but with the dawn close, the boy figured they'd covered close to fifty miles. James wasn't random in his choices; he followed a predetermined route through the pathless wilderness. He had his own rhyme and reason. They stopped as day broke to eat.

"Breakfast." James grunted. His stubby finger pointed to a holed rock face.

It was no diner, Kent wasn't sure what his Uncle had in mind, but he guessed this wasn't an accidental discovery, and James actions on entering only confirmed Kent's suspicions.

His claws extended and he scratched at the rocky earth several feet inside the cave mouth, after a short while of furious digging he excavated a plastic wrapped pack. It was the first of many. A cursory glance at the contents revealed, by Kent's extraordinary vision; a weapons cache, emergency rations, and water. All that was needed for survival in the wilderness.

"I could have taken us to any of dozen or so ways-a-ways, from the farm." James explained. "And any of them would have taken us to a place like this." He looked at him, a look that said I am prepared. His eyes asked are you? Brow furrowed full of serious intent. "We've got to lay low, and make our way deeper into the wilderness."

The unstated truth was self-evident. _Luthor_ would be looking for them, chasing their trail.

"How are you holding up kid?" James asked. He shrugged am apology, and extended a claw "Snikt," then raised the razor sharp bone claw to his face.

At first Kent thought he was going to shave, but the blade didn't slide across his skin like a cut-throat barber might, but instead sliced like a surgeon. With only the wrinkles around his 'tasting a lemon expression' tiny eyes betrayed his pain. James calmly, flicked out the silicon implants from his face. From each cheek, around the line of his jaw, even the body of his nose.

Bloody they fell into the hole he had dug. As his ravaged face healed, he said through bloodied lips. "Light a fire boy. That's your shtick."

Kent tried to oblige, and concentrated on the collection of dry kindling he quickly arranged. It seemed to him he _should_ be able to do this... again, but somehow it seemed wrong, like it had been wrung out of him too soon.

The dreamlike images swam around just below the surface of his conscious mind, tantalisingly close, but also just out of focus.

"Didn't have this trouble when Sabretooth was killing your pa." James said.

Kent span around, his temper flared, eyes flashed red, James flinched; there was the smell of burnt hair pungent in the cave.

"I was planning on you cooking up these emergency ration packs." James replied. "Not me."

Kent said nothing; he knew what James had done. That didn't mean he liked it. Something had changed in their relationship. As the dry leaves and slender finger thin sticks were ablaze, he realised what it was.

"We're not pretending any more – are we?" The boy said as he added more fuel to the flames. "Out here we're what we are."

"Here's the billy-tin." James replied passing him a packet of beef stew, which he opened with a lightning fast 'Snikt' of a claw.

"No you're done playing at happy family's kid, and this isn't camping in the woods with Uncle Jimmy, this is a crash course on how to stay alive when some of the best hired guns in the world are chasing you down."

James had always treated him like an adult; this was different, harder and kind of like the army stories told by his Pa, he shivered a little as grief nibbled away inside.

Advanced for his years by human standards, the boy connected the dots. Luthor meant Luthor Corp. The company his Pa always followed in the business section of the Newspaper out of habit, and if the older man demonstrated anything when reading about Lionel Luthor's exploits, it was loathing.

Luthor Corp had a factory outside of Jonathan Kent's old home town.

Whatever there was between them, it went back to Smallville.

With water from a plastic bottle out the pit, Kent rehydrated the dried mixture. It wasn't cooking by his mother's standards, but in a little while there was an appetising aroma.

"Won't Luthor be tracking us?" He asked looking up from the pot.

James shook his head. "He sure would like too." Adding cigar smoke to the tainted air. "His people had tracking devices fitted to anything that moved. My bikes, your Pa's truck." James squinted and put his hands together if twisting and snapping something. He sniffed the air. "Even you."

"Me?" Kent replied.

"Yeah." James said, this time scratching the dry blood and whiskers from his face with a razor claw. Without the implants he looked leaner, less round faced, a different person entirely.

Kent realised James had been hiding who he was.

"Now you know just how handsome I am, as nature made me." The man called Olsen, if indeed that was his real name laughed. Then back to serious once more, he added. "That tracker, the one they implanted in you as a baby, that wasn't me who fixed it for ya'. That malfunctioned almost immediately. Your highly evolved immune response broke it down to nothing in hours."

"Why?" Kent asked. "How..."

"Do I know this stuff?" James shrugged. "Silver Fox." He shook his head and briefly explained. "Silver Fox is a double agent inside Luthor Corp." He went onto explain how she had 'persuaded' Lionel to place the 'Logan Child' with the Kents, and how he and Silver had hatched to plot to extract him before Luthor could complete his plan.

Only James was sketchy about what that plan was. "I don't know exactly." He answered when pressed. "We expected him to let you age up some more." James spat. "Hell should have known he'd not give a damn about making you into a child soldier."

"Me?"

"Well kid you did take down Victor Sabretooth Creed." James sniffed. "By that standard you're worth a small army already."

"What about you?" Kent asked. "What is your part in this?"

"Me." James shook his head. "Done things that I'm not proud of. Fought here and there, for a long time. Worked for whoever was willing to pay."

"You were a mercenary?"

"Kid I'm the best at what I do, and what I do ain't nice." James answered. "So the Billionaire Lionel Luthor came knocking promising a never ending pay day and sure, I was interested. More fool me.

"He had plans for people like me, people like you."

Kent realised that James had been hiding from Luthor too, and hiding in plain sight too. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"Weapons." James said. "He wanted me. Almost had me, if it hadn't have been for Silver Fox..." James paused and shrugged saying, "Now its you Bub - he really wants you to be a living weapon."

"Against who?"

"Whoever or whatever gets in Lionel Luthor's way."

"How do you know Creed?"

James sighed. He sucked on his Cigar. Sniffed the air, as if thinking about answering.

"We go back a long way. We were brothers in arms, but he liked the work too much." James shrugged. "Things got real bad between us. It went like that for a while, we'd cross paths, and he'd give my hide a good licking. I'd give as good as I got. Then it changed. That was the first time Silver Fox saved my skin, and I hers." James crushed the tobacco against the rock. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't of got there when I did." James growled. "If I'd have been there a moment late. Creed had her, meant to do her harm."

"A man shouldn't hit a woman." Kent said with religious certainty. A Jonathan Kent maxim repeated.

"Well there is that, and then there is worse than that." James replied. "You remember that drake who wouldn't leave your Ma's ducks be?"

"Yeah." Kent remembered. "Ma was running out after him chasing him with a broom." It was a funny enough memory to make him smile – almost, but reality was too close, too real to let that happen.

"Well imagine that kind of thing, but with claws, and all the murderous intent of Victor Creed."

Kent felt his eyes redden in rage. This time he held back the fire. It made his head throb. I'm learning he thought.

"Yeah exactly." James nodded. "Somehow Silver Fox being there... in that situation,... broke something inside of me, I was angry kid, so very angry, I tore into Creed, and for the first time I got the better of him. Dammit I thought I'd really killed him that time."

"You didn't."

James nodded. "Nah. More fool me, but you see I nearly didn't make it myself."

"You didn't heal?" Kent asked, he frowned. "I thought you always healed?"

"Oh I healed all right – here." James patted his torso. "But not here," he tapped his head, "here I was lost in a berserker rage, but Silver Fox she pulled me back, brought the man to fore again."

"Creed killed him." Kent said, tears formed in his eyes, but they turned to steam before they could roll down his cheek.

"Now listen up Bub we don't have time for none of this maudlin." James told him. "Pull your man pants on kid, you just got drafted into the real world, red in tooth and claw."

"Okay." Kent snapped. "I get it." He growled back. "What now?"

James nodded his approval. "We stay out of sight, we can still make progress west under the cover of the trees.

"Where are we going?"

"Vermont."

"That's..." The boy did the maths, rubbing his dry eyes any way. "Well has to be more than three thousand miles."

"Yeah like I said kid, no time for feeling sorry for yourself. We got to keep moving."


	9. Chapter 9

John Stewart was a man cast in iron, bare chested, honed muscles rippled under his rich dark skin. Dog tags hung around his neck. Broad hands scooped ice cold water to his face, dipping into the mountain stream, run off from the Logan Glacier. John rinsed his tight curled hair; clipped short, almost shaved, Marine style. Stewart's boots were worn, but well cared for, John worshipped at the Church of self reliance; motto "God helps those who help themselves, and he practised the daily rituals of routine maintenance, spit and polish. Only his rifle, a M1 Garland received more care. His shirt hung in a tree wafting in the wind over the Chitina river, and was army surplus, like the rest of his gear, faded green from honest wear. Beyond the trees of the Alskan National Park, was the Saint Elias Mountain range, and the highest peak, Mount Logan rose on the Canadian side of the border. Stewart dressed, picked up his pack. A faded red insignia bore the likeness of a green dragon. His intention was hike along the water course to the ice. The Chitina was glacier fed, and this far upstream it was heavy in sediment, becoming a braided river some three miles wide. Criss crossing channels cut through the wide sand bars.

The sound of another human being moving through the trees alerted Stewart, old habits deeply ingrained had made this boy from Detroit a US Marine. Vietnam had made him a teenage recipient of the Purple Heart, the Corps had made him a non-commissioned officer. JAG had shown him the door. There are some things a Marine shouldn't admit to seeing. Civilian life hadn't been easy.

Gun to hand Stewart said. "Come on out, easy now, nice and slow."

From the summer green and untidy undergrowth of young saplings, a unkempt middle aged man emerged. He had hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. His dark hair was shoulder length and untidy much like his grey streaked beard. "Now steady on there young fella." He said. "I'm just minding my business."

Stewart scowled. "Seems like you've been minding mine for last twenty minutes or so."

The other man sniffed, he seemed irritated that Stewart had known he had been following him. "Just don't like strangers much."

"This is public land." John told him.

"Yeah and I'm seeing more of your sort, hiking here, hiking there. What's the point in that?"

"Like the man said about the mountain."

"What mountain?"

"Any, all that matters is that it's there."

The older man laughed. "Yeah that's true ain't it." He looked John up and down. "I thought you was military."

"I was." John replied, relaxing his stance, and letting that show.

"We've been expecting you. Bob and me." The man said.

"Me?" John's fingers tensed around the gun once more.

"Not you in particular. Just the military. No one sent you then?"

"No. I'm a civilian on holiday. Doing some hiking in the great outdoors." John thought that in all probability this man was crazy; that in all likelihood Bob was his invisible friend.

"Yeah I see that now. Still I am right kinda; I'm guessing you was a Marine."

"Maybe." John conceded.

"I recognised the emblem." He pointed to John's pack. "Bob was expecting they'd send the Marines, maybe some more of those Black Helicopters."

Stewart's curiosity got the better of him. "Okay." He laughed, as much at himself for asking as at the other man. He looked around him at the wilderness. "I'll bite, why?"

"You think I'm crazy?" The man snapped. "Crazy Chuck Chuck?" He coughed. "Hell no - I'm not, not any more. You think I'm some crazy Chicken shat, I'll prove it to you."

"Steady on" Stewart said. "I haven't any beef with you."

"Hmmph." Chuck replied. His eyes narrowed. "Then you won't want to be seeing our alien artefact then?"

Had John Stewart been another man, hell if he'd still been the man who had made Gunnery Sergeant, he'd have laughed and walked away from the old coot, but he wasn't that guy any more.

Life happens, a man sees something that changes everything he knows, he was a believer.

"How far is it?" He asked.

"Just a short aways, back there." Chuck thumbed back into the trees. "At the cabin."

"How do you know it's Alien?"

"Fell from the sky didn't it. That's what Bob told me anyway."

"Lots of things do that, doesn't make them not of this world."

"Yeah but do they glow green, can they kill people, can they cure people, give 'em their lives back?" Chuck asked. "Well can they?"

"I guess not." Stewart replied his decision made, striding past Chuck. "You say its this-a-way?"

They walked, Chuck took the lead, pointed the way and chattered, but said little of consequence; except his surname; Powell, in turn he introduced himself as John Stewart.

The cabin was about a mile or so away from the main river channel along side a fresh fast flowing tributary stream. It was an old fur trappers lodge. Smoke wound out of a chimney, greenery sprouted from a turf roof, the walls were timber logs. A food catch was set back high on stilts with a rudimentary ladder to the shed on legs that served as a larder.

It transpired that Bob was real enough. He was inside making a pot of coffee for himself. An African American like Stewart; he was older, darker and greyer than Chuck, and had the same couldn't give a damn approach to sartorial elegance. The one room shack was simple but clean. It smelt of men, tobacco and wood smoke. A table, two chairs, centre, and two bunks lent against opposite walls, and in the stone fireplace a stove.

Bob, coffee not withstanding ,wasn't expecting company.

"What's you brought him here for."

"He's come to see the green."

"You say?" Bob asked. "Since when did we start inviting hikers to see our green?"

"Well I got to thinking." Chuck said. He hung his rifle on the wall. The cast stove burned wood, and Bob's coffee pot boiled on the top. "I remembered what you said about the green."

"So you just take it upon yourself to ask the first man you meet to come on and see it?" Bob asked. "Ain't I told you enough times, we're the greens guardians. We don't show it to any brother who happens to show up."

Bob looked him up and down. "Military green too." He scowled.

Stewart raised his hands in conciliation. "Now gentlemen I don't want to make trouble between you. I'll just let myself out, and go on my way."

"Now look what you've done." Chuck snapped. "The first fella who was prepared to come here and look at the green Bob, and you are chasing him away."

"What do you mean?" Bob asked as Stewart turned to the door. "How many you asked?"

"Four, this ones five." Chuck answered, "not like we've lots of visitors out here," stepping back to put himself in the way of John. His face pleading. "This one is the first that hasn't thought I was plum crazy."

"Well you were."

"I was." Chuck agreed. "But I'm not now. Show him Bob. Show him the green."

"All right, all right." Bob said. "I'll get it."

Stewart sighed. He had come this far, so he stayed. Bob fetched an oilskin wrapped object from under his bed, and placed it centre on the table. Pealing away the canvas revealed an old railway style Storm Lantern. Two things struck John right away. It was very green, and it was glowing.

"See this is the green." Chuck said.

Stewart frowned and shook his head. Odd, yes, he thought, but Alien? No, he decided. Thinking not unless it changes shape before my eyes.

Still fascinated nonetheless, John Stewart looked closer. The green light filled the lamp completely it seemed to move like hot wax in a larva lamp, but with more intensity and energy. The green was glowing inside the void of the lantern, and in turn the metal had taken on both a green colour and a luminous mercurial quality. This gave rise to second thoughts.

He squatted down to get a closer look, bringing his eyes parallel with the lamp.

"Three times shall I flame." Bob said. "First to bring death. Second to bring Life. Third to bring Power."

"Huh?" Stewart said, not understanding Bob's recitation, but before either he or Chuck could shed any light on the matter, the Green Lantern flamed. In an instant it's surface was alight with green fire, intense and bright. Filling the small room with an eerie glow, and from the void a tongue of flame leapt out at John. Stewart fell back, arms raised, instinctively ducking away, but it was too late, he was engulfed.

John was ablaze in green fire, yet the flames did not burn, if any thing Stewart felt cold, he shivered with chills like electricity coursing down his spine and through his limbs.

A voice in his head said to him. "Power, power to fight evil. Power if you have faith in yourself. Lose that faith and lose the energetic force of the Green Lantern, for will power is the flame of the Green Lantern's light!"

Stewart looked through the green fire and saw in the brightness moving shapes and shadows.

There was a disembodied voice. "Doomed Planet." He saw the surface of am alien world breaking and cracking. Stars were going out, everything was dying.

"Desperate Scientists." The voice in his mind said. He saw them, so very human and terrified in robes of red and blue. "Last hope." The man stood outside a rocket like capsule. Inside was a baby in the arms of its mother. "Riding upon the Heart of a Star."

The green light dimmed and the fire dissipated, leaving only the glow from inside the Lantern.

Stewart slumped to the floor.

"Is he breathing?" Bob asked.

"A-huh." Replied Chuck.

"Damn I guess he's got the power."

"What is the Power Mr Stewart?" Chuck asked keeling down beside him. "We'd like to know."

Chuck barely waited for an answer, before he said. "Because Bob here was saved from a mean Grizzly by this green rock you see. It flamed the bear, like it did you, but it killed it, because first comes death."

"That's what it told me." Bob agreed.

Chuck continued. "Then Bob found me running around out there," Chuck gestured vaguely outside, "I don't know how I got all the way out here because I was insane back then. Mad as a box of frogs I can tell you. Well Bob brought me here, I was fixing to die from exposure. By now he'd put that rock into a lantern he had on account of the glowing."

"It remade that rusty thing into something else, shiny and new." Bob stated.

"Well that's when it flamed again and instantly my sanity came back to me, I could think clearly, I had my life back."

"Because second comes life." Bob commented.

"Then it flamed just now," Chuck added, "that's the third time and that's for power." He lent in close, bent across the prostrate Stewart, and asked again. "So what is the Power?"

John barely heard any of this, less understood it, but answer in the form of a hoarse whisper crossed his lips.

"Star Heart."


	10. Chapter 10

Kent it was, his uncle by choice called him this, or failing that boy, and sometimes if his uncle was feeling generous – Bub. He didn't spend time generously. Every moment was precious, leading, pressing forward, and almost always in motion; sleep was something to be done in short, stolen in shadows of the day.

Night time was for travelling.

James was a hard task master; a teacher with the outdoors as a classroom. He taught survival on the run, whilst running.

"Like this boy." He said, James had shown Kent how to throw a punch back on the farm, now he showed how to use a blade in conjunction with his fists, his feet; knee and elbow, head and shoulder. How every action and reaction could bring death.

So it was each night under the cover of darkness.

One early morning they paused by a fast flowing river, a brief respite. A brown bear had the scent of blood in his nostrils, a young deer, but the kill wasn't his.

The bear roared, snorted, confident, the smaller hunter snarled. Shaggy dark hair flecked with red, unkempt and angry.

"The Wolverine." James whispered. Even this was to be a lesson Kent realised.

They watched the two animals face each other. Their fight was short and furious, and it was remarkable to see the squat badger come dog sized animal chase away the far larger predator, the smaller carnivore triumphant, its teeth snapping at the bears heels.

"Y'see bub, everybody loves the underdog, and they take him and make him a hero, and then they hate him."

Eastern mysticism married to Western Mountain Man grit, the boy's sparring partner was the wild itself; the Mountain lion, the Grizzly, and the wolf; and when necessary the bestial dark side of his Sensei. One moment the invisible ninja, the next the berserker beast.

It was glorious, the martial discipline, the isolation all helped him forget his loss, the death of Pa Kent at the hand of Sabretooth.

Everything would have been just fine if it weren't for his nightmares. "Strange things, alien things, a red planet, a red sky, blood, and then the green." Kent gasped. "It hurts Uncle Jimmy. It hurts so much."

"Quiet" James growled through clenched teeth, his calloused hand pressed against the boys mouth stifling the moans of his terror filled dreams.

They'd travelled a long way, weeks on foot, across the open Canadian countryside, and now across the wide border into the United States.

"We're too close to people." James whispered. Fixing his glare into the now open eyes of child beneath.

"M'Okay." Kent insisted, his words muffled by the older man's grip.

James nodded as he sniffed the air. "Illinois, still smells just the same."

As his nightmares grew worse they both slept even less. James with half an eye open, while the boy refused to close his eyes. Together their trek became a ill-tempered adventure, with few words and far more disagreements, often settled physically. Towns were avoided, save to forage for new supplies. James would leave him and visit some backwoods settlement under the cover of darkness, but even that came to an end. In its place the artificial luminance of man made light.

People were really close now, hundred of thousands of people.

"Why here?" Kent asked.

"Because you need to see a Doctor."

"I'm fine."

"When did you last sleep?"

Kent didn't answer, and his silence was answer enough for the older man; the boy knew there was no point in arguing, none of this was natural. So he followed his Uncle James who led the way towards populated rim of Lake Michigan.

Chicago was a city that had risen from the ashes of the great nineteenth century fire. It gave birth to the modern metropolis with towering sky scraping buildings, hung upon skeletons of steel.

On the Gold Coast another legacy of the fire remained, amongst the great houses built by the wealthy and influential stood one of the oldest, constructed in the neo-gothic style so beloved by the Victorians. The Mansion was as more a fortress than a home with castellated walls interrupted by buttressed towers, which rose above the mature trees that created an impenetrable wall of green around the private park that was the castle-folly's gardens and grounds.

From out the stolen row boat under the cover of darkness, the man who had taken the name Olsen, and the boy he called Kent slipped into the water. The shore was but a distant outline. They had spent first hours of darkness pushing south across the lake, by doing so they had avoided the Windy City's urban sprawl. Now together they swam towards it.

Kent followed the older man ashore. The pristine beach gave way to manicured lawns and gardens, peppered by mature trees.

Crouched James sniffed the air, and Kent could see the hairs on the back of his neck quiver. With one hand extended he bid him hold fast. The boy stood still, concentrating on the night. For him it was a world of colour and life, not diminished by the absence of daylight, but rather changed, rendered in the infra-red spectrum, and colours shifted appropriately. With his other hand James tapped the sand, a recognisable beat, the rhythm of Morse-code.

_We have arrived _James communicated.

For a long silent minutes they waited, silent and still.

Distant the exterior lights of the imposing mansion flickered, and with that apparent signal James leapt forward. "Stick close, and stick to the path." He stated.

His uncle led them to the house along the otherwise invisible route through the vibration sensitive alarm system.

The door into the ground level Garden Room was open. Above the main ground floor and at the other side of the vast house the main entrance facing the city.

"It's been a long time." James growled as he stepped into the light.

"You know what they say about a bad penny." An Englishman replied. Kent did not hesitate to scan this stranger, the tall man was lithe, mid to late thirties, and balding. The dark suit he wore, a butler's uniform, hid the lean muscle beneath the tailored fabric, and a small tattoo of winged dagger on his right forearm. "How the devil are you Logan?" He asked as he shook James' hand.

Kent frowned, thinking another alias?

He was not surprised to hear a familiar heart beat, and with this recognition, he didn't know whether to be angry or glad.

Neither emotion made sense, especially when her presence reminded him of his adoptive father's brutal death.

"And this must be..."

"Kent." James interjected, shaking the boy from his introspection.

Kent pushed his grief back deep inside, and found a polite smile.

His uncle continued. "Jarvis here, he's an old friend and a..."

"Gentlemen's Gentlemen." The Butler in turn interrupted James. He held out his hand to Kent, and the boy took it. He smiled warmly. "Jarvis is Logan's way of reminding me of our past."

"Where's the Doc?" James interrupted the taller man. He sniffed the air as if making a point. "I expected him to be here too."

Silver Fox announced herself, knowing both his uncle and he had detected her presence. "Come come James." She said walking through the open door from deeper inside the house. "If you can't make an actual appointment, you can't really expect..."

His uncle's frown indicated his near constant displeasure, yet her voice banished it. "You smell wonderful darlin'" He smiled. "So where is he?"

The tall butler raised his hands, almost coming between the lovers. "Things have changed Logan." He said in a quiet but firm voice. "And my employer has moved with them, he is husband and a father."

"It couldn't happen to a nicer guy." James ran his hand through his long tussled hair, still wet from the water. "And I mean that sincerely, however it sounded."

"I know you did James." Silver Fox sighed. "He and Martha took their boy to the Movies, they won't be long."

"Can you page him." James asked the butler. "Get him here."

The tall man frowned. "Logan your manners haven't improved any – surely you can wait another half an hour or so?"

"James." Silver Fox said. "Perhaps we should wait just a little longer, and at least let our friends see the end of their film."

The man with many names sighed. "Okay." He said after a moment reflection. "So Mr Pennyworth have you got half decent stogie in this joint? Seeing we have to wait for the Doctor."

"Only the best Cuban." The Butler replied. "And perhaps young mister Kent would care for something to eat?"

"Yes, thank you sir."

"Alfred." The tall man suggested. "Call me Alfred."


	11. Chapter 11

The rain poured from the black night sky, heavy and loud onto the dark pavement underfoot.

"Who was that Thomas." She asked her husband. "Who did you see in the lobby?"

They had avoided the proper exit and now left the Movie Theatre from a side door. Between them their son.

His father snapped open his umbrella, immediately the rain drummed loudly on the taught canvas.

"Bruce Mathew." His mother cajoled him using both her sons forenames; she often did this to indicate her growing disapproval. "Come here!" she chided.

Bruce danced away from her, his fists raised. His lips pursed as he made the doof-doof sound to accompany his shadow boxing. Oblivious to the rain.

"Rocky?" She sniffed at his Father. "Thomas, you had to take him to see Rocky?"

"Martha mine look, our child's enthusiasm isn't it contagious." Thomas asked.

A cool stare was his answer. His Father then said in a firm voice. "Bruce, come on, your getting wet."

Bruce returned splashing through the fast forming puddles still boxing the air as he went. The boy saw his father wasn't watching him, rather Thomas was staring up the long dark alley.

Beyond were the brighter lights of the main street, where the Movie theatre's classic illuminated sign cast a red glow.

"Thomas?" Martha said, summoning her husbands attention.

"It was just someone I really didn't want to talk to." His father told her, answering her earlier question.

"Not that reporter?" His Mother asked. Her voice trembled ever so slightly.

Bruce gripped his fists all the tighter.

"No, not Jameson." His father replied.

Bruce stared into the distance. A tall broad figure walked around the corner into the mouth of the alley; a giant of man suddenly framed by a flash of lightning.

Bruce felt his father's firm hand, as Thomas dragged him to his parents side. "Bruce you must do what your mother says." His father hissed. His tone had changed. Something was wrong. Bruce was a precocious child, blessed with a peculiar intelligence.

Wide eyed Bruce looked up at them, he wondered what could be the matter and his heart beat faster.

Bruce looked back to the Main Street, but the big man had disappeared. Bruce relaxed, still a child, still supremely confident in his parents invulnerability.

"Here let's shelter in here." His father gestured to a covered space between to paired buildings. "I'll call Alfred." Thomas added, saying to Martha "No point in trying to hail a cab, since our cover is blown any way."

Bruce's mom touched her husband's rain kissed cheek. "At least we got to go to the movies like normal people." She said.

He smiled in that soppy adult way. "Like when we were kids."

"Before the Paparazzi."

"Before Jameson."

Bruce looked away, thinking there was going to be kissing. He stared into the shadows, and shivered.

Thomas led his family across the dark alley into the conjoined buildings across the street. The rain rattled on the tin roofed bay that ran between the two brick built units, exiting the other side. On either hand there were raised loading platforms allowed goods to be rolled onto the beds of visiting trucks. Lightning flashed and for a moment the dilapidation of the buildings were exposed in the brightness. Whatever place of business this had been, that work had stopped and some time ago too, given the state of disrepair. Still it was shelter from the driving rain.

Bruce resumed play, he was boxing and dancing, he was king of the ring.

Thomas grabbed the mobile phone from his coat pocket, and pulled the aerial up. Punching the green-yellow backlit keys of the blocky device, the grey LCD display registered his home number.

"Alfred..." He stopped talking, letting the phone drop away from his ear.

The voice on the other end said. "I'm en route in the car sir." But his father wasn't listening. He didn't ask why Alfred was already coming for them. His father's attention had been snatched away from his cell phone.

Bruce stopped playing. His mother gasped and grabbed for them both.

The man had been hiding, concealed by some up right 50 galleon metal oil drums stood rusting on the left hand loading platform. The flap cap wearing figure dropped onto the cracked concrete at their feet. Lightning flashed. A unshaven chin was revealed, his other features hidden by shadow cast by the brim of his hat. Wearing a long dark dirty coat, the unkempt man was everything you might expect of a hobbo, except for the gun. It was black and purposeful. The hand that held it was steady, paradoxically the gunman's other arm twitched spasmodically.

Bruce saw a man at war with himself, and he didn't understand why this was happening.

"Please – we're just sheltering from the rain." His father said.

"Money, watch, jewellery, yer fancy walkie-talkie. All of it. Now." The stranger demanded.

"Fine, take it, easy, sure..."

"Cash, now. Hurry it up."

"Fine." His father said, reaching into his pocket.

"Slowly!" The mugger barked.

Thomas acquiesced, withdrawing his wallet steady he extended it in his hand outwards. With is free hand the robber grabbed for the leather bill-fold, jerking it from his father's fingers, clumsily. The wallet fell to the ground. He ignored it stepping forward instead.

"And the Jewellery." He growled, his still grasping fingers pressed towards his mother's neck. To where her pristine white pearls glinted.

"No." His father snapped, putting himself between the mugger and his wife.

Bruce was to remember the next moment forever. The flash of the gun. The sound of thunder. In that self same moment an even brighter light burst above as the storm lit up the sky with jagged energy once more. Above them the sky light broke. Shattered shards fell as a dark figure dropped as if carried on wide dark wings, billowing outwards. At the same time Bruce saw two red eyes, burning like hot coals in the darkness, beneath a yellow cowl. There was a figure infront Bruce, his father, his mother; between them and the gun. Appearing in an instant - as if by magic.

Following the flash, the gun shot, there was more; bang, bang, bang, chaos. The yellow figure falls backwards, driven by the iron fire. His arms spread wide, revealing a bright red chest, and a familiar bird like crest. That's like mine Bruce thought. His mother called his, the Robin Red Breast sweat shirt. Bruce is bewildered, his fathers hands push him away, hard. The world turns upside down as boy tumbles away from his parents, bouncing across the cold damp concrete, coming to a stop against the wall of the loading bay.

Bruce catches his breath and looks again for the bad man with the gun.

The dark figure from above had landed on top of the robber, their would be killer is splayed out on the hard floor.

"You picked the wrong night to go robbing rich folk bub." A deep voice growled.

Bruce looked up and across the prostrate figure. The wings his saviour wore was in fact a large black hooded rain cloak, the oversized oilskin was just like the one his father's Butler Alfred sometimes wore.

Looking back he saw how smaller figure, lay atop of his parents. Again Bruce's analytical mind recognised the details. The yellow cloak was familiar to him too. So like another oilskin from Alfred's closet. Bruce remembered wearing the too big waterproof one stormy day.

Bruce then heard a voice coming from the alley backing the Movie theatre.

"There they are."

"Whose that with them?" A second stranger called out.

"Doesn't matter." A third responded. Framed in the storms flashing light was the giant man, and he was far from alone.

There was a roar of automatic gun fire, bullets whizzed through the air, the man in the black rain cloak leapt like an animal, complete with bestial roar. The boy, for Bruce decided it had to be someone only a little older than he stayed with his parents, holding them down as bullets fell around them. It was the last thing Bruce Mathew Murdoch-Wayne ever saw.

A stray bullet, and there were plenty of them struck one on the drums above him. Liquid erupted under pressure, his face turned to the noise, and his eyes were bathed in toxic goo.

Bruce cried out in agony, the last thing he remembered before the pain caused him to pass out was that he wasn't the only one screaming.


	12. Chapter 12

Alfred broke a dozen traffic regulations in half as many miles, the Rolls Royce's power had been raised from the factory's stated value of adequate, to more than adequate, a necessary modification given its already hefty curb weight had been increased by the generous inclusion of the latest armour, and bullet proof glass.

Rain reduced visibility, standing water traction, and the tires screamed as the stretched bespoke limousine tore towards the Park Row Cinema, occasionally sideways and into traffic.

Silver Fox rode shotgun, literally, her hands grasped a pump action 12 gauge.

She didn't say a word.

Alfred used the gas and brake to indulge in a Scandinavian flick, sliding the last corner around the Movie Theatre, whose billboard announced a special showing of the Classic Oscar Winning film Rocky.

He squeezed the expensive car down the alley past the dumpsters and between the cinema and the commercial units. Driving to where his bosses' last telephone call had come from.

They had already been on the road when Thomas had called. He glanced over at the reason he was. The enigmatic Native American, he shuddered to think what might have happened had she not been here tonight. Alfred knew Silver Fox well enough not to doubt her visions, and she had received a premonition warning of his employer's imminent deaths. A convergence of bizarre coincidences; of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and an unrelated but deadly conspiracy. Each event independent from the other; each story had a deadly ending.

Logan and the boy had left the car as soon as down town traffic had slowed his progress, using their incredible talents to make a bee line to the Cinema over the rooftops.

So it was as Alfred drove down that back alley, he saw in the beams of the cars headlights his old comrade in arms. Logan was locked in combat with a man twice his size. The giant of a man, his fat bald head shone in the lights, held the smaller man in a bear like hug, lifting the still battling Logan high off his feet. The bigger man was staggering backwards out into the alley, as Logan rained down punches on his face and body, together backing out into the rain. Alfred didn't slow down.

The Rolls Royce's hand crafted grill made contact with them both. Together the brawling men slid along the pavement, rolling together, the big man didn't let go.

"He'll heal." Alfred said to Silver Fox.

"I wasn't going to say anything." She replied as from behind her car door she aimed her shotgun into the loading area.

"Alfred." A woman screamed. "It's Bruce." Her voice broke. "He's.."

"MEDIC." Thomas called to him. Alfred pushed his feelings to one side, and relied instead on his training. Seconds later he had retrieved a bag from the car. He didn't even think about the conflicting terms of boot and trunk.

Running past downed assassins, broken assault weapons littered the floor of the loading area, alongside men who were either dead or at least unconscious, and Alfred didn't care which, the former soldier slid down beside the fallen boy. The case opened and fixing a head torch to his brow he quickly shed light on the child's condition. There was an angry red chemical burn across his face, across his eyes.

"It would have been worse." Thomas began to tell him, as he reached into the comprehensive medical kit.

"Your fingers sir." Alfred noted the burns.

"I'll live." Thomas replied. "We'd all be dead if it weren't for the Kent boy's talents."

Alfred saw Logan's ward. The boy stood in the bright yellow oilskin he had given him; he was looking at Bruce, a boy his own age, with a concerned and troubled expression. Standing guard over them all the Butler noted to himself.

Alfred didn't need an explanation. He had assessed the scene and drawn his own conclusions. His questions regarding the Kent boy and the broken and bent assault rifles could wait.

This strange boy wouldn't be the first exceptional individual to seek out Thomas' special expertise.

It was evident his employer had wiped the corrosive chemicals away from his sons eyes with his own hands. He had little choice but to let Alfred continue, saying. "See Martha, I told you employing a field medic was a good idea."

"Mrs Wayne," Alfred began using shortened version of his employer's name, "apply this cream to Master Thomas' hands please." He passed a tube of salve to the panicked mother, giving her something to do. Working quickly he cleaned and covered the injured child. In the distance, but fast approaching was the sound of sirens.

Silver Fox saw Alfred grab the medical kit. She saw the downed men, and turned to where Logan was fighting.

Alfred and the three ton car had broken the big man's right leg, yet he still held onto James. Silver Fox heard him grunt something of a greeting. "This between us."

"Good to see you're in one piece." She replied.

"How come you're still breathing?" His adversary spat.

"How about you let go?" Logan asked in a hoarse whisper, bloody froth dripped from lips.

"Never."

"Thought you say that."

Snikt, the sound was muffled, but Silver Fox recognised it.

The bigger man jerked, his face contorted in pain and anger.

"Right now there are six blades deep into your back, say the word and I'll deflate both your lungs." Logan growled.

"Stay there big man." Silver Fox stated pointing the shotgun at his head. "And before you ask James, I am loaded for bear."

Realising his position was hopeless the big man at last let go.

"Stay there and bleed." Logan spat as he slowly got to his feet, his bloodied hands showed no sign of the bone claws that had moments before sliced deep into his opponents back. His face was mask of pain, but Silver Fox knew that this would pass.

"Damn well cracked every rib, my spine too I think." Water dripped from his whiskers. He tilted his head to the coming sound of sirens. "Cops are almost on top of us." He added.

"Are you good to go?"

"Not really, but I have my wingman." James whistled, as he pulled the oilskin hood over his head once more.

Kent appeared. "We'll see back at the Wayne Mansion." James said. "Let's go." He added turning to the boy, and leaning on him. Silver Fox watched as the boy wrapped an arm around James' waist.

He then leapt up and over onto the Cinema's flat roof, carrying Logan with him.

Behind her the whine of sirens and flashing lights filled the alley way announcing the arrival of Gotham's finest.

"Looks like your ride is here." She said to the big man. "I hope you like your new accommodation."

"Whatever." The man replied through gritted teeth. "I won't be there for long. That much I promise you – and miss, Wilson Fisk never breaks a promise."


	13. Chapter 13

The red headed Doctor, signature white coat, weaved along the maze of busy corridors that was Wayne Memorial Hospital. Another concrete and steel legacy of the 1960s. Dwarfing the Chicago Board of Trade Building where the industrial leviathan that was Wayne Enterprises stocks had traded since the 1930s. She carried with her a chart marked Murdoch-Wayne, Bruce Mathew. With over five million square feet of floor space, the tallest building in the world for more than decade, this sky scraper didn't just house the most advanced teaching hospital in country. The modular design that was in effect nine buildings bundled together, seven rising to different heights, the eighth and ninth, were conjoined twin towers rose and rose 111 floors. One hundred of which housed the university hospital, topped by the Wayne foundation spanning 9 floors, and crowned by Penthouse suite belonging to Thomas and Martha Murdoch-Wayne.

It was said that the Wayne family true genius and the foundation of their fortune was their ability to recognise genius in others and employ them.

Three towers served different divisions of Murdoch Pharmaceuticals. The remaining four towers served the many diverse arms of Wayne Enterprises, born from Steel, diversifying into construction and heavy engineering, the component manufacture for the auto and aviation industries, and most recently, what the newspaper pundits referred to as Thomas' folly; Wayne Electronics and Computing. Water-cooler scuttlebutt said WEC was more than a metaphorical sink hole, but also a literal one, whispers were of extensive sub basements existed below the three shown on the public plan; housing the the Wayne Enterprises Division no one talked about; Special Projects.

The Doctor entered her patients room. His parents were at the child's beside.

Bruce Matthew Murdoch-Wayne was unconscious, his eyes and much of his face bandaged, what skin could be seen was red and inflamed. Bruce was dreaming.

Everything was dark, there was noise, bestial sounds of scratching, growling, snarling, and snapping. The blackness had an edge to it, sharp teeth, murderous intention.

He saw his parents dead, killed by an dirty desperate thief, he saw them gunned down by assassins with assualt weapons. Nightmares, that past because in the darkness of sleep he saw that these things hadn't happened.

Bruce dreamed on, seeing in his minds eye a bullet strike the dark blue steel drum. From this burst the green-yellow liquid; bright like antifreeze, glowing in the dark as if on fire. It splattered across his field of vision. It felt cold against his skin, but burning him all the same. Pain and then everything was brilliant, hot and frightful, his mind was on fire, it was as if he were staring into the sun.

His dream shifted once more. The sound of gunfire filled the darkness. Echoing around the run down warehousing. Backwards in time, but just a minute, and Bruce stood in fear, rigid, pinned to the spot. He stared down the barrel of the muggers gun as the theifs dirty broken nails grasped for his mothers oh so white and pristine pearls.

Then he appeared, dark wings above them, as if born from the night. Falling amidst a rain of shattered glass. This angel of the night had struck the robber, driven him away and down. Terror had filled the fallen man's features. Fear that had almost consumed the young Bruce Matthew Murdoch-Wayne had gone, leaping like a spark of electrical current and to the thief. His gun had fired, but it had not killed, and Bruce was sure it would have, had it not being for this brave hero. Then there was a second protector, a child no older than him, a boy without fear, who had deflected bullets from the chattering guns of yet more thieves in the night, so many men baring arms, each seeking to kill, his mother, his father and him.

Failing because of the Dark Knight and the boy in yellow and red.

Bruce's dreams could have been all nightmares, they could have been all about pain and fear, all about profound loss. but in the darkness of drug induced sleep, the youth instead dreamt of heroes and like any boy might he dreamt being a hero.

Unbeknown to him his father stood by his bedside.

-8-

Medical Ethics demanded that Thomas delegate Bruce's care to another professional; and Doctor Wayne had chosen her. This was in every way a big deal. His kind eyes were filled with trouble and they were looking to her for answers. She self consciously flicked back her red hair. Wayne's medical degree was just the beginning of his expertise, there was no sugar coating the results of her tests.

His wife Martha sat, her hands gripping the hospital linen, as she listened. Their son would never see again.

Thomas' dark moustached lip twitched. His eyes told her that he was not surprised. Of course the brilliant Doctor Wayne had already concluded the worst. His wife wept.

"Perhaps given times, the damage, the burns, they might heal?"

"The chemical burns are only part of the story." She explained for Martha's benefit in her gentle Scots brogue . "There is secondary radioactive isotope of undetermined origin, but one which favours intravitreal administration."

"I beg your pardon." Martha stated wiping her tears. Her posture stiffening.

"She means it passes through the eye." Thomas replied.

"Yes, and from the eye, via the optic nerve into the brain." From her notes she passed x-ray images of the child to his father. The presence of the radioactive isotope was visible as a tell tale fluorescence. "These were taken immediately following the patients admission to our trauma centre."

She passed a second image across to Doctor Wayne. "As you see from this most recent x-ray, the radioactive element has already decayed."

"Yes it's barely visible."

A tall dark man entered the room, recognising her he nodded.

Thomas turned and greeted James Lucius Fox. The younger man was his right hand, his eyes and ears in Wayne Enterprises. It was no secret that Fox's business acumen freed Wayne to pursue his calling, as a doctor and as a philanthropist.

"I believe you know Doctor MacTaggert." Thomas said introducing her as the attendant physician.

"Yes.." Fox began. "Hello Moira."

"Rohdy and I go back a long way Mr Wayne." Moira replied.

"Oxford." Fox noted.

"Yes, of course." Thomas said to Fox. His voice tired and strained. "You were a Rhodes Scholar." Doctor Murdoch-Wayne frowned pinching the brow of his nose. The stress of the last hours showing in his posture. "I asked Mr Fox to identify the chemical compound that burned Bruce's eyes."

"Of course any information, even at this stage, may prove helpful." Moira responded.

Fox frowned; an unspoken question.

"My son is blind Mr Fox." Martha said in a hoarse angry whisper, her voice growing louder with each word. Tear filled she looked up at her husbands aide. "Who is responsible?"

"Blind.. I'm so very sorry, Mr and Mrs Wayne." Rhody stated. Then he opened a manilla folder in his hand. "The test results." He stated with confidence. Passing them to Thomas. "I traced the viscous substrate that was being used to contain the trace amounts of radioactive isotope. The results were conclusive."

Thomas Wayne's hand shook as he read the document. His mouth mouthed a single word, a name.

"Luthor."


	14. Chapter 14

"I'd like to speak to Mr Stark."

She looked up at him like a model from the cover of vogue, in the midst of some super futuristic set, but this was her station, in the here and now at Stark Enterprises. Her hair and makeup faultless even the ambient light favoured her. It wasn't an accident, nothing in this sprawling office suite was, with everything an example of precise design; from the windows, floor to ceiling. Stark was that kind of genius. His secretary looked right through him as if he wasn't there.

John Stewart figured that Howard Stark didn't get many unannounced visitors to his penthouse office suite wearing army surplus clothes.

"Mr Stark has no room in his diary." She told him, pushing back her golden hair. She played him with her eyes, in another life she'd have made a great actress. He knew her other hand had already triggered the silent alarm.

"Howard always did excel in recruiting the right people." He told her. It was a genuine compliment; she was cool when faced with a stranger in worn combat fatigues, who had inexplicably got around some of the world's best security measures, to get into Stark's inner sanctum. His secretary was probably even more efficient than she was beautiful. "But we both know that security won't be here for another forty seconds. So if you're finished flashing your lashes at me, please tell Howard, that John Stewart is here to see him." He smiled. "What have you to lose – at least I'm asking nicely rather than barging my way in?"

She pursed her lips in annoyance for a brief second, ready to deny him, to point out the steel barrier between them and Howard Stark, but then she relented, perhaps realising Stewart had already passed a number of these by already. She depressed the intercom switch.

"A Mister John Stewart wishes to see you."

"I don't see that name in my diary." Came the curt reply.

"No sir." She replied. "You don't."

"A-huh." The voice of Howard Stark said. "John Stewart, I'm sure my security detail will ask you how you avoided them, I admit I'll look forward to reading their report, but even as I commend you for your ingenuity in bypassing my security, I won't be seeing you – as I am a very busy man."

"Gunnery Sergeant John Stewart, Mr Stark. It's been twenty years."

The intercom switch glowed on; the silence was broken by the sound of armed men emerging from the elevators down the hallway."

"Cancel Security" Stark said. "I'll speak with Mr Stewart now."

His secretary frowned at this volte face. Surprises did not enter themselves into a schedule.

Stark added. "As I recall even that hot head Colonel Lane Ross and his Thunderbolts couldn't get you Gunny to shut the hell up and stand down. I doubt my Security will either, that is without breakages. Stand down gentlemen." Starks voice boomed the last three words loudly across several hidden speakers.

His secretary tried again. "But sir your diary,.."

"Make the necessary adjustments Miss Plate." Her boss answered.

The double doors to Stark's office opened on their accord with all the swish of a Star Trek episode. Stepping around the bemused guards Stewart entered. Inside the white minimalist chrome and glass theme continued.

"I did all I could John." Howard Stark said, standing up from behind his glass desk, the billionaire industrialist arms manufacturer crossed to shake Stewart's hand. "Ever regret not taking that deal I brokered with Ross?"

"If I had – I wouldn't be here, but thank you for believing in me Sir."

Stark looked good, lean and grey haired, his fresh skin belied his age. "I wouldn't go so far as that, but I never doubted you believed your account, let's say I gave you the benefit of the doubt."

Stark had been a young man at the outbreak of World War II he had worked alongside his father in the family business ensuring the Allies got the tools they needed to defeat the Axis. Never a soldier, too damn bright, his uniform was a lab coat, and his camouflage a business suit. Howard Stark was however first and foremost every soldier's friend; because Stark gear worked, and didn't break, even if you tried.

"It's been a while, I'm glad you remembered our conversation." John said letting his relief show.

Stark smiled, his moustache was a thin rakish line, grey now like his hair, but reminiscent of the screen idols of yesteryear. "I never forget a promise."

"Sure." Stewart knew this was no idle boast, it was reported that Stark's intellectual armoury included an eidetic memory.

"Let's cut to the chase John, right now you're eating into time diarised from the Secretary of Defence. If your here I guess this means you've finally got the proof – proof that you saw something not of this world that night."

"Not exactly" Stark's eyes at once registered annoyance, he raised his eyebrows, but John assuaged him by raising his hand saying. "But something as near as damn it." From his middle finger green flame burst forth, creating the glowing lamp, whose brilliance at once painted the huge office emerald.

"I was chasing a lead all the way up in Alaska, and long story short, I found this." Stewart explained. "A green crystal was found and then I guess, because it glowed, its finder placed it into an antique lamp; an object it either transformed by it, or even copied and replaced, because what you're seeing it is how this old railway lantern looks like now."

Stark reached out and touched the green glass like object. "Hologram," he whispered, then with certainty he said. "Solid to the touch" He looked at Stewart. "What is this technology – and where did it come from?"

"If I had all the answers, or at least answers I could understand, I wouldn't be here Mr Stark, but I remembered our conversation back in Nevada, and I thought you were the guy that would be able to help me understand what this is."

The older man laughed and nodded in agreement. There was no point pretending. "There was always Luthor Corp." He suggested as he peered into the verdant light.

This time Stewart shook his head. "Stark gear was something a Marine could trust."

"Okay John," Howard said, "but let's be straight from the start, you don't believe this green lantern is from Kansas, that's for sure."

"That it's extra-terrestrial, yeah that much I do know." Stewart replied. "And not being from this world explains why I've found communicating with it to be more miss than hit."

"Just you – or is it.." Stark asked with uncertainty. "The light – does it talk back – is it learning too?"

"It talks after a fashion, riddles almost, not even recognisable sentences sometimes, to me at least, more like random words. But is it learning, well I think we both are." John told him.

"Fascinating" Howard Stark looked both puzzled and excited. "Tell me if not where, if not how, at least what can it do?"

"Do you have anything in here that you are tired of – that you won't miss?"

"Well I've ordered a new desk this week. I've grown bored of seeing my feet." Stark replied, stepping aside.

Stewart concentrated, and from his hand, from the ring around his middle finger a beam of light took the shape of hammer which smashed the glass and twisted the steel frame of Howards Stark desk. The billionaire looked on agog.

Then Stewart his face drawn in the expression of man intent, concentrating, made his projection change. Green light morphing into the jaws of a vice like grips. The solid light construct crushed the shattered remains into a small square cube, fractured glass and all. John held the cube for a moment as it cooled, glowing faintly with residual heat from the sudden compression.

"I'm still learning what I can achieve, what I can create – and what those creations can then do." Stewart explained filling in silence. "The first thing I made was little more than breakers ball, then came a hammer shape, and lately I've been forming simple tools with basic moving parts."

He placed the glass and steel mass on the stone floor.

Stark laughed, and crossed the room, opening the doors to the outer reception lobby, Howard spoke to his secretary.

"Miss Plate. Call the Secretary of Defence, reschedule our meeting."

"What shall I tell him Sir?" The stunned woman asked.

"Why, isn't it obvious my dear, something more important has come up." Stark replied.


	15. Chapter 15

"How was your boy?" James asked. Uncle Jimmy slipped between identities like a Method actor, and the rough outdoors man had transitioned overnight into an urbane gentleman. His fearsome mane shorn, his whiskers trimmed; Italian suit, silk tie and handmade shoes. Kent recognised Alfred's hand in this, yet there was no hiding that Chicago's version of uncle Jimmy was a predator, albeit one adapted for the concrete jungle. Logan carried himself like a made-man. Yesterday they both had been wearing pauper's rags dirtied by their cross border dash, today they moved as American Princes; guests in the latter day castle that was Wayne Towers, an elevator ride from the world leading medical facilities of the buildings Memorial Hospital where the gravely injured Bruce Murdoch-Wayne was being treated.

The King of this particular edifice was Thomas Wayne. His suit and shirt were fresh; starched and pressed, but his face was creased and worn with worry. "We have Bruce in a medically induced Coma, while we attempt to determine the full extent of injuries." The worried father told Logan.

"How bad are they?" James asked sipping the single malt breakfast Alfred had provided, the generous measure golden brown cut glass tumbler. Behind them the floor to ceiling glass panorama windows overlooked the cityscape and Lake Michigan.

Kent sat but in no way relaxed in one of the penthouse's plush leather armchairs. Unlike his uncle James, Kent had not slipped easily into this jet set lifestyle.

He could smell Martha Wayne's perfume. She appeared at first glance to very different to his mom, but beneath the designer clothes, her personality and manners reminded him of May Kent, and this made him feel her absence all the more deeply. Martha Wayne was with her injured son. Kent didn't know where his mom had gone. He hoped the man; Agent Parker had kept his promise to keep her safe.

Dr Wayne continued to explain his son's condition. "Remarkably the tissue damage is largely superficial, first and second degree burns in the main. Scarring thankfully will be slight, limited to the delicate skin around Bruce's eyes, which is in no small part due to the artificial dermis we developed from one of your tissue cultures James."

Logan reached out and grabbed Thomas' shoulder. "I'm sorry my blood's full healing properties are so difficult to decipher… I wish… there was a treatment to make Bruce whole."

Dr Wayne sighed. "As do I, but our new Jerusalem won't be built in a day,…"

"It's been five years." Logan said interrupting before draining his glass.

Wayne nodded. "...or even a lifetime, but I will get to the bottom of your unique genetic heritage James, together we _will_ revolutionise medicine."

"Glad to help, even if all I did was bleed a little." Logan passed the cut glass tumbler to Alfred, who hovered, a constant presence at the other man's right hand. "I've seen many men lose their sight, heck I've scrabbled around in the dark enough times myself..."

"But you always come back, or should I say grow back." Wayne mouthed an acknowledgement to Alfred who provided another strong black coffee for his employer.

"I won't sugar coat this Thomas." Logan said. "I've seen a lot of things, sometimes men don't, can't change, adjust to their new circumstances. Children however are plastic, they bounce back in ways that can surprise and inspire."

"Thanks old man, Martha at least will be pleased to hear that it ." Wayne said shaking his head, "but the thing is my Bruce wasn't your average child to start with, the Wayne Curse is strong in him."

"Curse?" Kent asked, speaking for the first time that morning beyond the necessary yes, no, and thank you, Breakfast had demanded. Despite having only met Bruce Matthew Murdoch-Wayne for a matter of moments in that time of crisis, he felt invested in the boy's future. He was troubled by a nagging feeling of guilt, Kent couldn't help thinking that if he had only been quicker and stronger, perhaps even faster than that lone speeding bullet, he might have saved Bruce's sight.

Martha wouldn't be weeping by his bedside. Thomas would have been able to sleep peacefully.

"Nothing literal, rather biological," Thomas Wayne answered, "it's a curse that affects all Wayne's in some way, and some more than others, it makes some socially inept and others eccentric recluses, as only the rich can afford to be. For the lucky ones Savant Syndrome made us smart and very single minded, if occasionally socially inept."

"Genius and madness" Logan growled, he flipped a coin, it flew spinning from his thumb and back into his palm.

"Something like that" Thomas said. "It what got me interested in genetics, little did I know that I was Moses looking out across the Promised Land."

Kent frowned uncertain what the billionaire medical researcher meant.

"I mean, I have had the privilege to see the next step in human evolution but unlike your uncle James I am not part of that kingdom. Like Moses I am forever on the outside looking in."

"This isn't my world either." Kent said still not really sure what the Doctor meant, he looked at the cityscape, so different from his homeland, the countryside, the Kent farm.

"In more ways than one," Dr Wayne observed, adding "that is if your blood work is anything to go by."

Logan scowled. "I didn't expect you to analyse the sample, not yet I mean, not under the circumstances."

"Master Thomas is given to bouts of insomnia." Alfred noted. "Working through the night is all too common; I think he forgets some of us enjoy our beds."

Dr Wayne sighed. "There was nothing I could do for Bruce except wait, and given the circumstances I couldn't sleep, it was a welcome distraction, a way to thank you both, for your timely intervention - saving us from certain death.

"I extracted a sample from the material you provided, and ran some preliminary tests. Forgive me Logan I was sceptical of your story." Wayne downed his coffee, "but I am no longer."

"Pretty wild isn't it?" James suggested. "I mean the kid's blood isn't green, but he's not local, despite his homely looks."

"Oh, the appearance of his being human, is more than skin deep, simple microscopy isn't going to raise any red flags, in fact standard tests indicate young Mr Kent is a type 'O' universal donor."

"You're kidding me." Logan laughed.

"Not I." Wayne countered.

"You know I'm still here." Kent reminded them.

"Sure, who could miss your winning smile?" His uncle James replied. His sarcasm rammed home, Kent realised he was wallowing in self-pity. He could almost hear his Pa saying, "laugh and the world laughs with you, cry, and you cry alone." He had been concentrating on himself, his personal loss, the things he couldn't do, like stopping every bullet, but it didn't matter - the world kept spinning; good and a whole lot of evil things kept on happening. Kent resolved to do his best to stop as many evils, bullets, and bad guys as he could, and if that meant wearing a disguise, a persona, like his uncle James wore a change of shirt, to save people like the Wayne's, then he would.

Meanwhile Dr Thomas Wayne continued to reveal his initial findings. Kent's hidden secrets, what made him different.

"It was only when I put the sample under the electron microscope that I began to see fundamental differences in structure, if I thought your biology was complex, a life's work, then this young man's is another order of complexity above and beyond that."

"Sorry about that bub, but it was either you, or Lionel Luthor, because no one else has the resources and the expertise, well maybe Howard Stark, if I wanted to blow the kid up, that is."

Kent smiled. If Logan noticed, he didn't let on, saying. "By the way Thomas, You're not the only one who hasn't been sleeping" He gestured back in Kent's direction. "This one has pretty much given up, and when he does his dreams are always troubled. That's why we dropped in, personally, rather than just posting that bloody rag into your mailbox."

"Lack of sleep doesn't seem to have slowed the boy down any." Wayne noted as he ran his fingers through his dark hair, referring Kent guessed to his superhuman speed, putting himself between automatic fire and the Wayne family. "For all we know this maybe a natural development for him."

"Perhaps." His uncle agreed. "But the nightmares?"

Wayne shrugged, tired and defeated. "Truth be told Logan, I'm more of a sawbones, blood and guts man, I know my way around the meat of a man's brain, but the thoughts, but that's more like bottling lightning."

"I hear you bub," James lit a cigar, "but I thought you might have, you know, a special kind of head-shrinker on your payroll."

"Plenty, but no one special enough, at least not here, not now,.. but I do know somebody who can help."

Wayne shuffled, he appeared uncomfortable.

"Great. Why do I smell this is one of those good news, bad news kind of things?" Logan asked, pulling a face even as he relished the expensive Cigar Alfred had provided.

"Well he is based out on the East Coast, he's even known to your hairy friends, and he's extremely skilled in what he does."

"And the bad news?"

"He's Lionel Luthor's son."


	16. Chapter 16

Norman Osborne pushed the brown paper envelope across to J Jonah Jameson. "With the grateful thanks of the Daily Bugle's Parent Company." He kicked back in his swing chair, as the reporter pulled the packet to himself, and pushed a untidy file back.

"Just act surprised." Osborne added. "When George Taylor calls you to confirm your appointment as City Editor at the Bugle." Norman looked out across the Chicago city scape, dominated as it was by the Wayne Towers building - the competition. From the more modest Central United States Offices of Luthor Corp, the young executive continued. "With work like this Jameson you'll soon be gunning for Taylor's job."

Jameson tucked the envelope containing his bonus into his pocket. Osborne tapped the file he had received. "According to legal there's nothing here we can publish yet, but it's all useful for, err, in house reference on the competition."

"Whatever you say." Jameson growled he couldn't help feel he was being bought. At least I get to go back to the Big Apple, he sniffed, thinking he'd had enough of the Windy City.

If that meant selling his dossier on the Waynes, so be it.

"Maybe we can have lunch in New York." Osborne stated. "We could call it an interview."

"Sure thing." Jameson replied in a dead pan voice.

He stood, ready to take his leave. There was something off about Osborne, what was the scuttlebutt from within the Bugle's parent company - Luthor Corp? Jameson reflected on the chatter, thinking about Osborne's nickname among middle management. He smiled but at the same time suddenly felt cold. Perhaps he should have been looking closer to home.

Still that was where he was going, following his heart, and there was always another time.

"I'm heading out East tonight." Osborne added. He smiled, proud of himself. Jameson's reporters instinct told him something important but as yet unspoken was going on here.

"If you hear anything way out – like the other night, the Wayne robbery" he tapped the file again, to emphasize his point, "I mean, anything well, 'Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World' strange – I'd like to hear about it."

"Seriously?" Jameson picked up his coat, draped it over his arm.

"Yeah." Osborne chuckled. "Indulge me Jonah, I can't get enough of that kind of thing."

* * *

><p>The truck's cabin was warm and dry. James Logan drove. The radio played happy music, the heater was turned up high. Air whistled through the partially open side window as the smoke from uncle Jimmy's cigar was pulled outside; inside the dashboard lights painted coloured reflections on the glass. Kent watched the stars, and the sparse oncoming traffic, it was in the middle of the night. His uncle by choice had become a truck driver, and James' hair and whiskers needed no encouragement to become character specific, growing wild overnight as the eighteen wheeler rumbled along the interstate. The painted side logos of the big rig read Murdoch Pharmaceuticals. The trailer was packed with over the counter medicines, delivery was for up state New York.<p>

Back in Chicago Thomas Wayne had seen that an agency driver called James Logan had been assigned the job of taking this truck to the New York depo.

"You'll be Logan's son." Wayne had told him. "Just along for the ride.

He tried out his new name for size. "Logan, Kent Logan."

"Don't wear it out." James growled over the sound of Soul Asylum's Runaway Train.

The tune was oddly apt for them, riding on their own run away road train headed for a secret rendezvous outside of New York.

"Westchester." Logan had told him their ultimate destination.

Kent looked at his documents; paperwork to back up their identities. Alfred had seen to this; obtaining a package that included birth certificates, school records for him, and a driving license and passports for them both.

"I've even got me a savings account." Logan had laughed at that. Thomas Wayne had seen fit to ensure they had enough liquid funds. All part of his thank you.

Kent looked out into the black of night, he thought of Bruce, and tried to imagine how the world would look for him, for even in low light Kent Logan could see far and beyond human norms.

Time past, the radio began to play "I will always love you" by Whitney Houston, but Logan's meaty finger stabbed the next pre-set before she had a chance to sing.

The oldies station seemed to improve Logan's mood, and later he even began tapping the steering wheel along to an old Bowie track, the Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud. Outside the dawn broke, and their twelve hour road time trek came close to it's journey's end. Yonkers Westchester County New York.

The depot was a grey collection of warehouse buildings, framed by the grey morning, differentiated only by number. Logan reversed the rig to the appropriate loading bay, and killed the engine.

Kent thought of Bruce. He remembered that other loading bay, and warehousing, how the stray bullet had struck the oil drum. The spurt of bright green liquid. He remembered how it had smelled, acrid and corrosive, how the stench had hurt his nose – and how odd this had felt.

Afterwards in the car Logan had smelled blood; Kents nose bleed. James had given him a borrowed handkerchief, provided by Alfred. Logan had returned this bloodied cloth saying to Pennyworth. "Should prove interesting to Doctor Wayne."

It had, another recollection that made Kent frown as they left the warmth of truck cab. Logan's 'job' finished, they left the rig with little more than the clothes they wore. A hire car was waiting for them outside the office, and in short time they were on the road once more.

Their destination, route committed to memory, was a county estate owned by a man who went by the name of Charles Xavier.

Clearing Yonkers early enough to beat the morning traffic, their route took them away from the urban sprawl of New York. The rural roads were less busy still. Kent was reminded of home, the farm, it seemed a lifetime ago, so many lessons learned, so many hardships, so much lost. As he remembered Jonathan Kent, his Pa, Kent Logan learned another lesson. Always thoroughly inspect everything and everyone with every sense at your disposal. In this case the hire car.

The explosive device was concealed close to the gas tank, hermetically sealed so no scent might escape, cleverly enough to be overlooked, even by a casual inspection by a child with x-ray like vision. Camouflaged as part of the fuel pump the part had been swapped out before James and Kent Logan had picked up the car. Kent saw the flash as the detonator exploded, he was already moving as the main charge exploded, but his body wasn't as fast as his senses. The secondary explosion was enough to tear up the rear of the car, turning torn metal into shrapnel, while igniting the fuel tank sending an explosive wave or burning gasoline roaring through what remained of the automobile. It punched Kent out of his seat, burning he fell through the air before slamming like a wrecking ball into the roadside. Dizzy Kent staggered to his feet. His ears were ringing, no he corrected himself it was another sound, one he remembered from long ago, or it seemed to him, the sound of helicopters. Kent sprang from the undergrowth, from the sparse trees that lined the road side to the almost unrecognisable remains of the car. He saw Logan, cast out to one side, and he wasn't in any better shape. By rights he shouldn't be alive, his legs were mostly gone, his arms so much burned meat, his body stripped of flesh to the ribs, that poked through the charcoal black burned flesh.

Kent knelt by his side, nearly naked himself, his clothes burned from him in the blast.

"Go." Logan gasped.

Kent saw his lungs and heart had already returned themselves to something that was just barely alive, his incredible biology was rebuilding him as lay on the road.

"Now!" Logan whispered between his teeth from a lipless mouth.

"I can carry you." Kent replied.

It was then he heard the missile, and Kent realised the laser targeting had him tagged.

"Run." Logan begged, convulsing.

Kent saw the black helicopters closing, the missile was fractions of a second away, he hesitated for a fraction more, realising he had no choice, Kent ran, but the missile followed. He ran faster than he had ever done before, but it still closed.

Stupid, he thought, to himself, as he kicked vertical in a massive leap, the missile sped beneath him slamming into the roadside as the highway curved away to the right. Kent descended, determined to return to Logan, but his plan was dashed as the two black helicopters launched a salvo of missiles in his direction, each targeting him.

Kent formed a plan on the fly, and putting his training to use he ran, leading the attack aircraft away from Logan. "Heal uncle Jimmy," He whispered a prayer of sorts. "Heal." As he sped away seeking the cover. Thinking I'll lose them in the trees.

The two black helo's duly followed.

Kent ran on, he was so intent on the armed threat following him, that he shut out other noises.

He was oblivious to the third civilian chopper that landed on the road, just clear of the blast site.

Kent ran on. Missiles exploding behind him.

Logan trained him well, with his speed and his smarts, he lost his pursuers. Locating a hollow in the earth, hiding there, dug in deep, the ground masking his heat signature, the boy waited until the near silent thrub of their stealth rotors vanished. It took a long time.

Hours later Kent returned to observe the location where the car bomb had detonated. He chose to keep his distance, relying on his exceptional vision, but from his concealed location, concealed by the undergrowth, he saw nothing.

No blasted burned out car, no debris, and no sign of James Logan either, even the pavement had been cleaned. Kent dare not reveal himself, as he was sure someone would be watching.

Still he looked for a sign, something scratched in the dirt, on the trunk of tree, carved with a bone claw, a pointer, but there was nothing to be found. In the dark of that night, Kent Logan realised he was alone.


	17. Chapter 17

Doctor Abraham Cornelius guided the huge gurney using a remote control. It hummed forward along the corridors of Yukon facility driven by electric motors. It wasconstruct of Adamantine Steel, powered because it was too heavy to manoeuvre by hand, and it was heavy because it had been built like a tank. Strapped to the gurney by fixtures thicker than a man's arm was the individual code named Logan. The project had given him another title. Weapon X.

His phone rang. Cornelius reached into his pocket and answered. Lionel Luthor spoke.

"Has the package arrived?"

"It has." He answered looking across at the dark auburn hirsute man strapped to the tank like gurney. A digital display recorded his vitals. Cornellius noted the subject's incredible recovery. Only hours ago Logan had suffered extensive third degree burns across much of his body, yet these areas were now covered by baby pink skin and dark brown hair; his flesh had more than healed rapidly, the subject had regrown his legs that had been taken by the exploding car. Logan's face was tanned a deep nut brown and his dark hair sun-kissed through lighter shades to red. Cornellius concluded that Logan had spent a long time in the great outdoors. If the data he had received in the last hour was correct, then the Projects prodigal son had been hiding in plain sight. Abraham smiled at the audacity of this gambit. He smiled a second time when he thought about how pissed Lionel Luthor had to be about it all.

"And tell me about the packages condition." Luthor asked.

"Now optimal, but still inactive." Cornelius checked the levels in the drip bag that was administering elephantine quantities of tranquilliser into James 'Olsen' Logan's system. "He." Abraham said, catching himself, stopping he coughed, then said "The Package is still err… wrapped very securely of course."

He heard a grunt from the billionaire on the other end of the line. Luthor's paranoia had been ratcheted up several notches by the events of the last twenty four hours, code talk was just another symptom of this; the older man had begun a comprehensive review of internal company security. Previously secure lines of communication were assumed to be insecure until proven otherwise. "I estimate around two hours to finalise the preparations." Abraham continued saying. "In every other regard we're ready to begin."

"I am en-route." Luthor stated. "I should be with you before the party begins."

"I look forward to it sir." Cornellius replied, thinking that it could do no harm, under present circumstances, to politely demonstrate loyalty. Systems were only as robust as the people running them, any review would begin and end with the personnel, and that included him.

"And the ah… modifications to the menu?" Luthor asked.

"I have every confidence that my revised method will deliver." Abraham's heart skipped a beat, and his memory returned to the bunker deep under Libyan sands, where this already audacious project had taken a blind leap into the unknown.

"And I look forward to seeing that." Luthor replied with emphasis. Cornellius didn't need reminding what was expected of him, but Lionel did any way.

The call ended. Cornellius sighed and engaged the powered gurneys motors once more. The assembly hummed forward descending deeper into the Yukon facility.

By the time Lionel's jet landed at the airstrip, most of the necessary preparations in the laboratory were completed. Abraham wasn't alone, a dozen or so white coated assistants busied around him, their identities stamped helpfully on name tags. Unlike his own, their photographs still looked like them. This team were young and eager, excited to be a part of cutting edge science, and enjoying the thrill of being paid handsomely for there cooperation. Luthor arrived at that lab, true to his word in time. Abraham was still working through the final calibrations of his revised apparatus. It reminded him of Frankenstein's monster, equipment from around the world stitched together by the latest cutting edge technology. There was the steady background hum of fans cooling the racks of computers. Centre was a large glass vessel – large enough to contain a man, and it did. Logan hung suspended in an electrolyte gel, his still unconscious body was a mass of puncture wounds. From these ran cables and tubes snaking out and upwards to hydraulically suspended assembly above the vat. This topped the containment chamber like an oversized lid might a glass jar.

"Silver Fox is a double agent." Luthor stated. His emotionless voice was all the more menacing because Cornellius knew that beneath his usual calm façade the old man was without question, seething over this betrayal.

Abraham swallowed, and tapped his pen on the LCD screen, which was running numbers streaming like a waterfall of code. Silver Fox had been a part of his team. He wondered how long had she been playing for another team? He wondered if her betrayal would reflect badly on him?

"Who was running her?" He asked, it took a moment for him to consider the implications, his thoughts switching between Weapon X's vitals and his sponsor, the difficult task ahead and all that had happened since Logan had escaped from their Yukon facility.

"SHIELD." Luthor answered.

Cornelius frowned and tapped at the keyboard. "The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?" He said.

"And that is how things should be." Luthor replied.

Abraham nodded, he found no happiness in this situation, he was resigned to his role in the bigger picture, he understood how it worked, and although he was privy to some of Lionel's most outrageous secrets, he knew with instinctual certainty that in the lion haired man's other hand held a fistful more.

"I never trusted her." Abraham offered. "Silver Fox – she was like him," he looked at Logan, "a mutant after all. She must have recognised him at the farm."

Lionel did not respond verbally, his eyes narrowed in anger.

"We have to assume Silver Fox has told Fury about the extra-terrestrial." Cornelius added.

Lionel stared at their captive subject. "Hearsay. SHIELD has no evidence of little green men. In the absence of hard facts people will find a more plausible explanation.

"How long now?" Luthor asked.

"Countdown has commenced, the chemical precursors are being injected as of now." He answered. Cornellius felt cold perspiration form on his brow, hot in hands. No doubt my face is a pale as my coat he thought. He dimmed main lights, the glow of coloured monitor displays, flashing rainbow lights from the equipment, and the blue glow from internal lights diffusing through the containment vessel changed the pallor of everyone present, including Lionel. Luthor's red hair streaked with grey darkened, his face gaunt in the strange light.

Abraham was glad to hide his true feelings, even the trembling of his legs as he sat down at his work station. "I estimate another ten minutes before the process proper begins." Abraham told his employer.

Luthor glanced at his watch. "Good, I have a telephone call to make - I shouldn't be long, but if necessary come get me, I don't want to miss the process, it's been a long time coming."

* * *

><p>"Colonel Ross." The voice came through a desk mounted intercom. The grey at the temples soldier behind it flicked a switch to reply. "What is it Captain Trevor?" He asked. His junior already sounded apologetic. He had only been in his Pentagon office for less than ten minutes, and ten minutes ago he had told Steve that he didn't want to be disturbed. He instinctively closed the file in front of him, the black 'SHIELD' logo and red 'Top Secret' identification adorned manilla folder. It was one of many. Rubbing his eyes Lane Ross felt tired, jet lagged, and stressed.<p>

"It's Lionel Luthor sir, on the secure line. He wishes to speak with you."

His already troubled face crumpled up further into a mass of wrinkle and creases. "Dammit." He swore some more under his breath. "Very well Captain put him through."

Samuel Thaddeus Edward Lane 'Thunderbolt' Ross held the receiver to his ear. "Hello Sam, said the billionaire, "how's Washington?"

"Let's cut the crap Lionel." The Colonel responded.

"Suits me Sam, I really don't have time for pleasantries."

"Right." Lane Ross said. His fingers bunched together into a fist only his friends ever got to call him Sam, and Lionel Luthor was no man's friend.

"I'll cut to the chase." Lionel said. "On your desk is a report from SHIELD."

"I have a bunch of reports on my desk, lots of Acronyms most folks know, and some most folks don't."

Luthor continued. "Nick Fury is kicking up a fuss. Kicking up an incident up the chain of Command, in the hope that he can get Presidential sanction to pursue his game, his inter-agency vendetta. But Sam this is Majestic 12 business."

"You're saying you think? Or…"

"No, I'm saying I know." Lionel said interrupting. "Absolutely, one hundred percent. This is our purview. As our military liaison I'm asking you to ensure the Whitehouse is protected."

Lane Ross's eyes narrowed. An appeal to his loyalty to the flag. Lionel didn't pull any punches. As the Director of Majestic 12 he didn't have too.

"Asking? You think I can keep a lid on SHIELD? Fury has a lot of friends on Capitol Hill, many with the President's ear. Maintaining plausible deniability may be impossible."

Luthor's voice lost any warmth, any and all pretence of friendliness. "The capture of this fugitive is why Majestic 12 was created, this situation is precisely why we were given our unique mandate. Why both the fugitives origins and our existence must remain a secret."

"Even from the President of the United States?"

"Especially from the President of the United States."

"What do I tell the Whitehouse?" he asked.

"That the Weapon X project is operational. That the US Army has the tools it needs to deal with our home grown terrorist threats."

"I see." The Colonel inhaled deeply. "I thought that program was canned?"

"Mothballed, until the right subject became available." Luthor replied. "We have brought in the optimal volunteer, and field tests of our super-soldier should begin this week."

Lane Ross nodded as he recalled the specifics of the project. It had a long history, longer than Majestic 12, going back to World War II. "If Weapon X is back on the table then that does change things." He pushed the Shield folder to one side. "I can sell the idea, at least as a stop gap until the new agency is up and running."

"Good bye Sam." Lionel said ending their conversation with a click of the receiver being put down. Lane Ross frowned, irritated by the brusque way Luthor had ended their conversation. He grabbed a notepad and pen from a draw, he scrawled across the page, two words by way of a title – Mutant Threat, shaking his head as did so, correcting the title to agree with the latest governmental directive, saying to himself, "at least their kind makes for a better story than the usual weather balloons and swamp gas."

* * *

><p>Doctor Crane R. 'Bolivar' Trask sat in the Oval Office. He listened to the Colonel's presentation with interest, and quiet suspicion. Lane Ross was the Army's man in charge of oversight of special projects. He had a desk at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but his special area of responsibility was countering what people like Trask liked to call the Mutant Menace, in secret, which made it need to know information, and Crane had made it his business to know about such things, albeit by clandestine means. He felt no guilt about spying on his government, none at all. Crane Trask made no secret of his antipathy toward mutants, while swearing loyalty to the human race.<p>

Colonel Lane Ross had summarised various agency intelligences on para-human events, including reports from the CIA, FBI, SHIELD, and the NSA.

"In summary Mr President," the soldier was coming to the end of his briefing, "we feel that SHIELD has very little substantive to offer this investigation, while I respect Director Fury's experience with cold war threats, there is no actual evidence that this is anything other than a domestic problem.

"Now Colonel you're telling me this is all he said – she said story?" The President asked in his warm southern tones.

Trask coughed, clearing his throat, interjecting. "Fury's operative is a mutant, it serves her kind's agenda to divert attention away from the problem."

"Perhaps." The President agreed. His brow furrowed, as he said warmth absent. "But let's not use the M word Doctor Trask."

Trask felt his blood boil, but with considerable self-control the scientist bowed his head in a nod of acquiescence to the Commander in Chief. "If not Mu.. ah the M word then what shall we call them Mr President?" As he asked the question he glanced at the others in the room.

"Doctor Pym." The President began, leaning back in his seat behind the Resolute Desk. Besides Trask and the Colonel, his hand extended to the other scientist in the room, "has an idea."

Trask forced an interested expression. The younger man was barely out of college, a genius, of that there was no doubt, but still but a pup in Crane's estimation.

"Metahuman." Pym replied. "My wife's idea actually, her expertise is micro-biological systems."

Of course Crane Trask recalled, Pym was a newly-wed, and still very much living in the afterglow - the honeymoon period, and with good reason. Trask recollected the bride, the very photogenic Janet Palmer in his mind's eye. Then there was Pym's sponsor, a reclusive genius called William Magnus, the man behind PPM Bio-Mechanicals.

"Department of Metahuman Affairs." The President declared. "Not a huge leap from your own suggestion Doctor Trask, Miss Roberts," he drawled, "do you have those papers?"

The young woman to the left of the Resolute Desk nodded, and passed out document bundles to him and Pym.

"Our metrics show that the M word is considered to be a pejorative by the key voter segments." The Presidents Aide told them. "Metahuman has performed as acceptable to well in our focus groups."

Crane glanced at the Public Relations data. "Such is the reality of modern politics." He said with a much warmth as he could muster.

He permitted himself a self-congratulatory smile, because lobbying had paid off. A Department of Mutant Affairs, by another name perhaps, but it amounted to what he wanted - and so it should he reflected. It had cost him enough money, damn mutants!

Crane Trask closed his eyes and breathed. It was also clear Doctors Palmer, Pym and Magnus had some influence over the Oval Office too – Metahuman indeed! He sniffed at the idea of the political correctness, while reluctantly accepting the expediency of the choice. He dropped Miss Roberts's document to the floor beside his easy chair.

What of it he thought, so Palmer, Pym and Magnus have the President's ear. PPM Bio-Mechanicals was a minnow, albeit doing interesting work, but not a real competitor for Trask Industries.

That honour belonged to Howard Stark.

"And the wheels are already in motion." The President informed them.

Trask smiled again, he had his own friendships. He knew his proposals had crossed the President's desk. Had captured the Administration's interest. That was why he was here today.

The President continued. "I signed an executive order creating the new agency this morning."

"Thank you sir." Trask replied keeping a lid on his emotions. "I have long said we need a more robust – connected, unified – response to the… ah… Metahuman threat." Turning to the other scientist, he smiled saying, "as Doctor Palmer would have said, had she been here."

Trask found himself thinking about who was not present with them, as much as who was at this meeting. He smiled again.

Pym misunderstanding smiled back at him, but the younger man did not succeed in appearing in any way comfortable. He then looked across at the President. "While I am intrigued by my inclusion in this briefing Sir, I would appreciate knowing why I am here?" Ray Pym asked.

Lane Ross answered for his Commander in Chief in his authoritative baritone, and with a wave of his hand he gestured to include both Trask and Pym. "Because you are both working on integrating advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and bio mechanical systems."

Trask nodded. Lane Ross didn't say it, but it was hard for a good soldier to shoot a child, even if said child possessed terrible mutant powers. A machine would not.

"Broadly that is true." Pym agreed. "PPM Bio-Mechanicals has made great strides, if you'll forgive the pun, in the field of robotic artificial limbs, whereas I believe Trask Industries has concentrated on the development of battlefield robots."

Crane seized the opportunity to interrupt the younger scientist. "There is an obvious missing person here today. That is if we're here to talk about robotics – and weapons."

"Howard Stark sends his regrets." The President replied without missing a beat.

"Really?" Crane responded. "Stark never struck me as a team player, I can't imagine him sharing his toys. Even given the serious of the… threat our nation faces."

Colonel Lane Ross shook his head. "Howard Stark is very much on board."

Pym seemed interested, saying. "Stark Industries has made some interesting advances using exo-skeletal robotics to augment human strength."

Trask believed he knew more about Stark's advances than anyone else in the room, and that wasn't enough. He wondered what could have kept Stark from attending a meeting with the President, still Crane thought, Howard's loss is my gain. Crane felt he had the strongest hand. He could direct DOMA in the right direction. Trask Industries file on the Pym suggested him to be a fragile kind of genius. Crane didn't anticipate he'd present any real problem.

"Starks powered armour has the potential to let the average GI become a super-soldier, carrying several soldiers' worth of gear." Lane Ross added.

"Stark, the soldier's friend." Trask said almost to himself. "In any event Mr President you have just included two of three most eminent American experts in Robotics a briefing about the Mutant, sorry I mean Metahuman.. problem." He paused letting the President know he too could play politics, then Crane said for Pym's benefit. "So what gives?"

"DOMA is the public face of this administration's response to the Metahuman situation." The President explained. "We face both threats and opportunities, and the former demands an appropriate response." The man with his finger on the button smiled once more. "One that can work alongside DOMA, but out of the public eye.

"DOMA will act as an umbrella, bringing together the various agency intelligence and asset. DOMA will be the quiet public voice, but the ARGUS program will be the big stick."

"ARGUS?" Pym asked.

"After Greek Mythology Ray," Trask replied, "the all-seeing giant of hundred eyes."

"Autonomous Robotic Global Ubiquitous Sentinel program." Lane Ross expanded the acronym, turning to include both Pym and himself, the Colonel said to them. "Which is why you're here, to level the field between human and super-human is going to require a technological response – something that puts machines in harms way, not people."

Trask smiled. "And as it happens I have been working on something that might just do that, and by working together Ray, you, me, and even Howard Stark; together we can make some stellar leaps forward in our field." He smiled at Pym adding. "For the good of our nation and the world." He finished with his most enthusiastic smile.

* * *

><p>Howard Stark was not at the Oval Office meeting, he was at the bedside of his teenage son, half a world away. Angola was a dangerous place, a bloody civil war had been raging on and off since 1975 in this southern African State. It was a complex place, where the cold war powers had played their hands via proxies, pitting one side against the other. For over a year now the UN had been involved sending peace keepers. One the ugliest sides of a very ugly war was land mines. Howard's teenage son, Tony Stark had met Diana Princess of Wales at a swank Party in London, and from Paris to Angola had been a hop skip and a jump for the Stark Jet. It suited the scion of America's foremost arms innovator to be seen going about the business of making mine fields safe, before embarking on his college education. To bring aid to those who had lost loved ones, lost limbs, and lost hope. He was still a boy, old enough to crash more than one expensive sports car in the last year, but too young to appreciate how fragile life really was. So nearly a man, tall, broad, and driven to excel both in science and the Iron Man events, one of the better habits Tony had picked up in Australia.<p>

Right now Howard blamed himself for everything. In that moment guilt consumed him as deeply as work had so often done, separating him from his son, wife, from family life. How his money was easily turned into conscience alleviating gifts, then more lavish gifts, always a little something to make up for the hours and days spent away. Perhaps Tony had emerged from the wreckage of Italian and German exotica convinced of his own immortality. Perhaps Howard's angry reaction to escalating mechanical carnage had been the catalyst that had driven him to darkest Africa. Perhaps it had been about impressing a Princess.

In any event the price Tony Stark had paid for his adventure into the war torn southern African nation had been a local one.

A familiar story to the young and old of this region. Wealth and fame did not make a man invulnerable. A land mine didn't discriminate. The damage to his son's body was terrible, so great that it was a miracle that Tony had survived for even an hour. A testament to the international team of doctors that were working within earshot of the blast, who had at once risked their own lives in an attempt save his son. The mine should not have been there, but like so many devices buried in so many places around the world there was incomplete records of where – even in the most general terms – such mines had been laid.

All this was bitter news enough, but the evidence that the former Marine John Stewart had pieced together from the scene was damming. The fragments of the device would have normally been ignored, scattered in countless pieces, forgotten. Using his alien Green Lanterns Light Stewart had collected and assembled a pattern of the mine that had effectively taken Tony Stark's life.

Howard Stark could not forget the image the green ring had projected. The mine's casing had carried the embossed stamp of its manufacturer. It had been made decades ago. It shouldn't be here in southern Africa, not then, not now. It should have been destroyed years ago, part of a program he had instituted, but the mine hadn't; rather it had exploded, as designed, with lethal efficiency even after so long, a testament to its design, his design - because Stark Munitions didn't fail.

"We've done the best we can Mr Stark." The Surgeon was a Frenchman, his English was accented but very good. "I'm not sure how your son is still alive. Under normal circumstances I would have already amputated the lower limbs, the right arm; the left I think we could probably save." He made no secret of his agenda. When you'd seen the brutality of war you didn't use cotton wool wrapped words with an arms manufacturer. "As per your instructions," he tapped the Stark Medical emblazoned drip bag, "we have successfully stabilised your son."

The Frenchman didn't say that this was an unexpected outcome. That it was inexplicable as to how Tony was still breathing, how his heart was still beating. He didn't have too. They both knew it.

"Although transport is of course risky in these conditions." The surgeon added as a matter of course.

"I have jet equipped with all that is necessary."

The surgeon nodded. "I don't doubt it, better than our hospital here can offer I would imagine."

"I will rectify that." Stark replied. "Your hospital – equipment, make me a list. It's the least I can do." Being direct about things came naturally to him.

The Frenchman's face softened. "I hope your American doctors are able to do more than I could." Howard Stark read between the words, even with the best operating facilities in the world enjoyed by the best surgeons he could hire the damage to his sons limbs was probably too great, the explosion had effectively amputated his legs above the knee on his right side, at the knee on the left, his right arm was mangled mass of flesh, damage to his core had been limited to shrapnel, but that had dug in deep like so many ragged bullets, compromising his major internal organs.

Howard Stark looked at the drip bag once more. John Stewart had delivered this to the hospital here within tens of minutes of the news reaching his office. His speed coming courtesy of the Alien Green Lantern Energy. This reaction, this choice, had been a gamble born of instinct and confidence in his own genius, but now that adrenaline fuelled moment had passed, now he had endured the hours in the air flying transatlantic to Angola, with the time to think, Howard Stark wondered what he had done to his son.


	18. Chapter 18

Zeus stood on the edge of a precipice, his bearded face lit from below by a shaft of golden brilliance. The light source at his bare feet was well shaft, a fount carved from the pure pale marble of Mount Olympus, a shaft sunk through the heart of the mountain itself. Zeus's eyes were downcast; staring into the gild maelstrom; waters frothing far below, contained by what appeared to be an endless cylinder of glass-smooth rock. Golden liquid hot and vital surged upwards in agitated sprays of luminescent droplets, splashing deep yellow on the white curved wall.

Around about him was a vast cavern whose borders were vague dark shadows; a chamber hidden directly beneath the King of the gods own throne room. Channels were cut in the rock floor, where once golden Ichor over flowed from the well's rim. Those times were long past.

His daughter Athena approached her King and Father with appropriate caution and reverence. Her Owl ever vigilant sat perched upon her shoulder, and a hooded eagle rode on her outstretched arm, savage talons gripping her gilded bracer. A great she-lion walked beside her. Her armour now shone resplendent, reflecting the golden light from the tumultuous well, as fabric as fine as mist flowed from her, a dress, a cape, and a standard, as the goddess of Wisdom, Strategy and War, stepped forward.

To Athena's relief her Father remained his savage self. She had good reason to fear finding a change had come over him, for now all Olympus had learned of the mortal worlds doings. The slight against her Father.

Zeus stood naked save for his feather cape. Barbarous, fully primal and regal. For Zeus there was no standard to attain, nor maintain; Olympus was his. He was Olympus, but for her and the other immortals it was another life entirely.

She approached him in all her splendour, a choice wisdom made. It paid to demonstrate strength and stature at the seat of the gods. She had come here into the belly of the mountain, dressed to impress. To remind her father of who she was to him, because Zeus could still forget himself; especially here before the font of raw power that was the Ichor Well. Self-serving madness came easy to the ancient and powerful immortals of Olympus. For a god to become someone or something else was to enjoy something very precious and rare; change.

When you live forever the novel experience after millennia after millennia of the same is prize without price.

Change was also a transformative experience in a literal sense. The gods outward material appearance was derived entirely from inward self-awareness, as immortals they could change their flesh as a mortal might a garment, by simply changing their mind.

Athena reflected how her father had appeared in a myriad of forms to as many lovers, and even more enemies. When Zeus lost himself in a new incarnation there were no barriers moral or intellectual, just raw power emotion and lust for that precious prize; novelty.

Athena maybe be his daughter, but family, ties of blood meant nothing should change come upon a bored god-King, his base desires and passions rose unchecked given a new and terrible form.

Whatever had brought her father back to this primitive place, to the Ichor Well, had not changed him, not yet at least, there was a chance that she might yet intervene, where no other god could.

"There is something familiar about you today Father." She told him.

Zeus turned to her, his eyes bright with their own golden light, as within them terrible angry storms raged, lit by flashes of lightning within his dark orbs.

"Not since Prometheus has mankind reached so high, the insult added upon insult; the hubris." Zeus spat.

"The news echoes around the halls of Olympus." She replied, keeping her voice measured and calm.

"I hear them muttering." Her father growled, his eyes sparked, and Athena felt the energies spill over into the mortal realms, she heard a hundred thousand thunder storms erupt, striking awe into many, and confusion into the weather models of meteorologists.

"No doubt the trickster tattler thief has parroted the tale more than once." Zeus said.

"He has a reputation to maintain, and this tale has kept attention away from your dalliance in Themyscira." She told him.

Zeus smiled at her implied rebuke. Hermes served her father even when appearing to taunt his King with his messages of mortal hubris.

"The change came upon me, and she is very beautiful, this Amazon Queen." Her Father replied. The lightning bolt faded back into his right hand only to flicker back brightly as he spoke. "The latter day emperor enraged me; she saved them, she enraptured me." Zeus confessed. For a moment his rage dimmed, before it returned.

"But now these mortals have gone further – they has done this!" Mist swirled around Zeus's now outstretched left hand. An image formed in the swirling tendrils. A naked man bursting from a great glass vessel, snapping snaking lines of plastic conduit that hung from his flesh, attached to the interface above him. Around about him a gelatinous liquid spilled from the broken vessel onto the ground. Lights flashed around the room, colour in the darkness, as people in white coats scattered and screamed. Strange mechanisms sparked around them all. From the man's hands blood welled as metal blades burst through his flesh, six great curved scimitar claws, edged with a new adamantium alloy the fusion of magic, earthly and extra-terrestrial science.

"The corrupted legacy of Amalthea!" He father said his voice cold and terrible. "New greater insult still is added to the former insult." Zeus roared, shaking his lion's mane of hair. His cloak billowed, there was a brilliance now coming from the body of her Father, his blood, the ichor in his veins glowed illuminating him from the inside.

Beneath him the Well of golden Ichor level dropped as the King of the gods drew power into himself.

"This mortal magi looks like you Father," Athena said pointing into the image contained by the mist. She picked out the face of the one man in the room who showed no fear, rather his expression was on of unbridled glee. His red beard and hair were streaked with grey, his face lined with age, but his body was strong with vigour. "Are you sure there is not more to this than you remember?"

Zeus snapped around, his bright eyes stared at her, his fingers clenched into a fist and electricity sparked around it as bolts of lightning took form in his right hand once more, and as his rage flowed into them, the eerie internal glow of ichor filled veins dimmed.

Athena's gambit had worked. She had stalled his rage induced change, for now at least. She had made him think of his children, those who lived long and strong but still died in the mortal realms.

"Time passes swiftly below." Zeus stated. "The Ichor Well is far from full daughter, it has not overflowed since the time of Alexander. Generations of mortals come and go so quickly, children begat children, no doubt the diluted legacy of my seed lives on in them." Her father paused, his eyes looked elsewhere.

Athena knew where, she too saw the veiled island. When her father loved, he loved deeply, but Kings do not marry for love but necessity.

"It seems only yesterday I lay in paradise," Zeus said his voice soft with affection, "but the child is already walking, talking, soon she will begin her marital training."

"Her conception is a glorious accident." Athena replied. "A gift of the Fates."

"Hera would not agree with you. The well was emptied of some of its gold that day, my rage, my passion, drew from its depths." Zeus shook his head. There was regret in his expression, his huge shoulders slumped forward towards the well. "Too little mortal faith trickles into the font of our power in these latter days, nowhere near enough to replenish our life's blood."

"Hera would not agree, _if_ she knew," Athena replied, "but that trickster tattler thief has kept the corridors of Olympus interest fixed on the fate of blessed Amalthea's remains, on mortal hubris, so much so that the changes on Themyscira have gone unnoticed."

Zeus chuckled, and turned away from the well to face her.

"That may help my darling Hippolyta escape my Queen's ire, but daughter it does not change our reality. Olympus days can now be numbered," Zeus gestured to the font of golden Ichor, "because someday this well will be emptied and there will no ambrosia for our tables; and then Olympus will be no more."

"We are immortals facing mortality." Athena agreed. "All the more reason to tread carefully – to enjoy our revenge cold."

"If I let this mortal's hubris upon hubris go unchallenged, then the few wise magi left who know of Olympus will say Zeus is truly dead. Would you have me hold back and hasten the day when that is true?"

"No father, but drawing on the Ichor Well for your hot angry vengeance now will only deplete the golden liquor sooner."

"Hera is a creature of vengeance." Zeus answered. "Her council is different; she would cut loose Ares, whose strength alone grows with mortals' one true constant – their love of bloodshed. Why is it you daughter, always so wise, caution me to hold my hand?"

"Because I would not see my Father usurped by Ares growing power."

Zeus walked across to be close to her, a Savage King again, holding himself with regal calm. Athena smiled, she had won. With her left hand she stroked the she-lion at her side.

"You and your cabal." Zeus said. "I see you gathered around the hearth of my sister Hestia, with Demeter, Aphrodite, and Artemis. You have made a pact with the trickster tattler thief?"

"We have blessed your daughter oh my King." Athena replied. "Each one of us, has blessed her especially, above and beyond her Amazonian heritage."

"And what do you require of me."

"Patience. Spurn Ares' blood lust, soothe Hera, and wait for the right time. For the Ichor's sake."

"And when that right time comes?" Zeus asked her.

"Then we deal with this mortal affront, we strike down this emperor for his hubris."

"How shall we do this daughter?"

"We shall call my little sister to arms."

Zeus laughed. "You would send an Amazon girl child to do my work?"

"The world changes, besides a girl-child with the power of Olympus will shame them all; all who know the truth of Olympus, but spurn us none the less."

Zeus said nothing, his brow furrowed. His face a picture of thought.

"Then our Ichor must flow." Athena told her father. "The days when we were worshipped have gone daddy." Athena said. "But we still embody, represent ideas, hopes and dreams for mortals. Imagine if Olympus was represented in the modern world by a modern hero? Would not belief in our purpose and existence fill this well once more with vital energy of adoration, of admiration?"

Her Father said nothing for a long moment and then Zeus nodded.

"We would cease to by a story told to children." Zeus answered. "Mortals would know gods once walked the Earth, and yes the golden Ichor would flow, a different hue perhaps, but I can believe the Ambrosia will taste well enough." Zeus laughed. It was a warm welcome sound, thunderous, like a storm breaking the unbearable heat on a too dry summer's day.

"More over daughter I can see the Amazon child." Zeus told her. "The Fates wish it; their voice sings to me. I can see her, and oh how the mortals Wonder, a Woman, a hero for this modern age." Zeus smiled at Athena saying. "Yes child, when the time is right the Ichor will flow, and Olympus will be avenged in the cold light of day."


	19. Chapter 19

The cheap motel room was sparsely furnished, but the front desk had taken cash and stayed disinterested. The rooms arranged on three sides around a parking lot facing the road could have been located anywhere in North America. It was clean but tired. The drapes drawn against the sun had been washed thin enough to rate as translucent in the daylight working in from outside. The manmade carpet shone as worn nylon can, the fake woods didn't, and the wipe clean furniture bore scars of past scuffles with previous occupants. Richard Parker wasn't sure who'd won. He bet on the metal and plastic, people usually had more give in them.

His charge however had little give in her. She was metal-tough through and through, and threw a mean punch too. Again she wasn't strictly people though, she was the other kind, the Mutant kind. Word was Meta-human was the Politically Correct term according to the current administration. Richard Parker paid his taxes, saluted and did his duty. Silver Fox was Native American; Red-Indian in the less correct old western parlance. He wondered what advice her ancestors would give if they could. Salem's Witch Trials, Cowboys and Indians, McCarthy's and Red's under the bed Witch-Hunt, and now the Mutant problem. Richard was a student of history and human nature, he recognised the signs and didn't much like them. They'd been on the move ever since the incident at the previous SHIELD safe house.

Richard had been called in to deal with Silver Fox. Their short but successful partnership had been enough to propel him to the top of Director Fury's list it seemed.

The mission debriefing had brought the former CIA operative, now full time with SHIELD to speed on the events following the attack on the Kent Farm in British Columbia. May Kent having been spirited back to the United States, She'd been found a place in Washington, and been given help to put her Law degree to use. Parker on one level was uncomfortable that no attempt to hide this relocation had been made, May reminded him of his older brother Ben's wife Martha. Jonathan Kent's death only made him more reflective. Ben was almost old enough to be Richard's dad, and had served with Kent in the army. SHIELD hadn't allocated May Kent a new identity. However May had history with Lionel Luthor according to her file, enough history for Fury to bet Luthor wouldn't move against her in the open, if only because such an overt move might lead back to him. Failing that Richard understood that May Kent was in effect a baited trap should Lionel throw caution to the wind.

Parker rationalised she was safe.

Silver Fox was another proposition, she was an operative who didn't really exist save for a dozen false aliases, and she was a Mutant. Making her disappear would be a lot easier for Luthor to arrange and authorise; and she had after all double crossed him. That never ended well. May Kent had just been caught in the cross fire. Silver Fox had been pointing the gun, the gun being another Mutant hiding in plain sight. His file was so heavily redacted that it made little sense at all.

"Are you okay?" He asked her. Silver Fox's signature silver hair was now coloured jet black, undercover operations demanded sacrifices. He went with a pair of round Lennon glasses. Eye glasses and mussed hair worked every time, people always underestimated the power of a pair of spectacles.

"Yes." She said, her eyes remained closed, her posture was that of meditation, crossed legged and straight backed, seated on the floor.

Truth was Silver Fox mostly didn't move. In that sense watching her was a lot simpler than he had expected. Usually baby-sitting jobs involved persuading a protected person they needed to stay in put and stay out of sight. Silver Fox had required no persuasion.

"And what about the boy?" He asked. "Have you sensed him yet?"

"No he's lost." She replied.

Richard folded his arms. Fury wasn't happy. "Your file said you were good at this."

"I am very good at this, but the child is not of this world, however human he appears, getting a read on him is difficult even when he is close by, at a distance impossible."

"But you're still trying?"

"Yes I am. Please convey this to Director Fury."

"Sure. I'll call him while I grab a Coffee." He replied sarcastically. Mission parameters involved the usual radio silence protocols. "Want one."

She shook her head.

Later he let himself back in, freshly caffeinated from the Diner down the street. He'd let nearly an hour amble by, walking slowly, drinking coffee slowly, reading the paper an earlier patron had left behind.

The outside of the Motel was no more descript than the inside, and just as worn and tired. The register housed in the office across the parking lot read Mr and Mrs Smith. It was a natural cover for a man and woman to assume. As he opened the room, Richard found he looked past Silver Fox to the Life Decoy Model SHIELD had provided. Currently it was on charge. The cable ran from the baby carry case to a wall outlet. The charge passed through the membrane on the case and through the life like faux skin into the small robot. It was a simple mechanism of its type, all the faux-child had to do was mimic the limited range of sounds and movements a baby needs to make to appear real. A whole lot simpler than the walking talking models that could fool the uninitiated. Still the robot made Richard think of his real baby boy, Peter. Then of his wife Mary. The child sold his cover story well, fugitive secret agents with a baby on board sounded ridiculous.

"Are you Okay?" he asked Silver Fox as he closed their door.

"I'm fine Richard. There's no need to ask every five minutes. I'm not a bomb waiting to go off." She replied eyes still closed, apparently unaware exactly how much time had passed.

"Tell that to your last handler." Parker replied, he was thinking how much he missed his family, and then how unprofessional that feeling was, which made him angry on two levels, at his job, and at himself for not being good at his job.

Silver Fox turned and looked at him, her eyes opening to register her displeasure at his last remark, her face was easy to read.

"Sorry." He added rubbing his hair. "Guess I'm tired, that and I just want to stay out of the hospital.

"That incident was a one off. A response to what I saw, to what they were doing to Logan." She replied. "I was unprepared for the psychic backlash." Then as an afterthought. "Agent Lewis is fine, he was only stunned, and I assure you Richard Parker he suffers no ill effects."

Richard nodded, giving her that much, before he asked. "But you're not trying to reach Logan now – or are you?"

Silver Fox let her head droop. She looked defeated. "I won't pretend." She said. "I have being doing exactly that."

"Every time you… meditate?"

"Yes."

Richard took a deep breath, and folded his arms. It was reasonable to assume the boy was still with Logan. "Okay. Any luck?"

"No."

"That's not good is it?"

"No, but not in the way you are thinking Richard Parker. If Logan were dead I would sense his passing, his soul would leave an echo of himself, and his Spirit would rise to the light. There is nothing."

"I don't follow."

"Logan is neither alive nor dead – he is something else. Something worse."

-(*)-

The Brass Plate read the Charles Xavier School for the Gifted. Today it caught the sun, but Kent Logan had first seen it in the dark. The building lit from the inside, looking dark and menacing as the gothic architecture of the grand country house that its builders had employed was want to do at night. In the day light it looked less menacing, but no less grand. An old house built by old money.

He had come to it as thief in the night, seeking sanctuary, and to his surprise it had been offered without question. The bald man who had eventually welcomed him had at first stared at the half naked child wearing what amounted to burned rags with incredulity. His guards had been more direct pointing assault rifles at him.

Xavier had looked into Kent's eyes with great intensity and greater surprise, then after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, Kent became aware of a presence in his mind. Odd but not threatening. Then in the next moment Charles Xavier's well equipped security personal, reacted, they stood down. Their weapons no longer levelled at the dishevelled child who had punched, literally through the facilities outer wall.

Kent learned quickly that night that Professor Charles Xavier was special too, he was a telepath, and he had created this school in his own home as a sanctuary for special children. What was more this Professor had been expecting Logan.

Unfortunately Kent couldn't relay any good news, James 'Uncle Jimmy Olsen' Logan had vanished from the site of the explosion that had destroyed their hire car. Kent had done the only thing left to him, he'd snuck cross country to their destination, an expansive country estate in Westchester; the Xavier Mansion.

As far as a school went it the grand country house was well appointed. There was every amenity Kent could imagine, everything was in place from gym equipment to science and language laboratories, in every way it was fully equipped but one, there was scarcity of students. The house had sufficient rooms to accommodate few hundred persons, yet the school was occupied by only a handful of students.

Xavier explained. "This is just the beginning."

Kent Logan had stumbled into an institution in its infancy. The Professor whose name was on the plaque, was a young man with aquiline features, made all the more striking by his hairlessness. He was confined to a wheel chair. Kent could see scar tissue and damage to his spine. With him was a youth teetering on the edge of adolescence, although his breadth, his barrel like chest, his height would suggest he was in fact much older. Hank McCoy, Kent learned was an example of one of two kinds of mutant. The former had the misfortune to be identified at birth, and shunned because of it. For them there was some obvious difference in their physiological make up which singled them out as different. For Hank it was prehensile toes, feet that were almost hands. It had been enough. Charles Xavier had plucked him from an uncaring foster care system. There were others, but their ages made the school more akin to a day care centre. One child who had been born with an extra set of digit less limbs from the shoulder, had been delivered to Xavier by his wealthy parents, who moved in the same circles as the Professor once had, before his accident, which was as much as Xavier would say about his handicap.

The fluffy down that had covered the young boys extra limbs had developed into feathers. Now Kent's age or thereabouts, the boy had wings, still developing, but undeniably Carter Warren Worthington-Hall had Cherub-like wings. Kent determined that his "almost eight years," his answer to the obvious question from the Professor, placed him in the middle of the age rage among the few who inhabited the rambling mansion, and visited the attendant stone built buildings. Kent as a farmer's son recognised them as originally been agricultural in purpose, although much grander than the utilitarian sheds he was used to, and then further on there were grander still stables and coach houses. These various buildings had been converted and extensively modernised beneath their old world stone architecture to serve as classroom facilities. The main house was living accommodation.

Along with the Professor the other adult who wasn't identifiable as hired in security or support staff, was a young woman called Raven Darkholme, whose striking appearance was deceptive as it was outwardly beautiful. Kent could see this by virtue of his enhanced senses, but having made similar mistakes in the past, he had the good sense not to mention this to her or anyone else.

Today he stood in the Professors office, Raven sat in a chair beside Xavier's leather topped desk. It was a room of considerable size and height, characterised by wall to wall library shelving, and oak panelling where there were not books, interrupted by large bay windows, and a big feature fire place, which blazed behind his back. Kent stared at his feet, or more accurately under them. There was an extensive basement and sub-basement levels beneath the whole complex. Lead shielding was employed, and his young eyes struggled to see any detail beyond grey shadowy shapes. He concluded this school was like an iceberg, with a great deal hidden beneath the surface. He told the Professor as much. "And I mean that both ways." Kent said.

Professor X raised an eyebrow and smiled. The other students called him that, it wasn't an imaginative nick name, but neither was it an unpleasant one, which said a lot about how his students felt about their mentor.

Recognising unspoken question as an invitation to explain himself Kent added. "I mean both physically and…" he waved his hand "well mentally I guess."

Xavier was unsurprised by the existence or reach of his x-ray like vision. To Kent he seemed unflappable. He lived in and for the strange.

"I received a letter from Doctor Wayne, of Gotham, Chicago." The Professor told him. "He asked me help you with your dreams."

"I don't dream." Kent replied.

"You mean you don't sleep." Raven stated. She was baby blonde today, yesterday her hair had been so dark that it had shone blue in the sun.

Kent shrugged and nodded.

"And when you do sleep, you dream." Xavier stated.

"I don't need to sleep." Kent said aware that he was being sullen. He could almost hear his Pa chiding him to pull in his bottom lip. Thoughts of this loss threatened to overwhelm him. Steam rose from his eyes, a combination of welling tears meeting heat vision.

The Professor's fountain pen scratched across the pages of his note book. He said. "I doubt that is true. I think you can go a very long time, by human standards without sleep. But I don't believe you can live happily without dreaming. Dreams are important to our mental wellbeing."

"I don't know…"

"Hank has built a dream laboratory." Raven told him.

Kent smiled. He liked Hank, he liked the idea of having a friend who could challenge him intellectually. Hank was a genius, and the fact that a child barely in his teens could build a laboratory didn't' surprise Kent, it excited him, and he found himself wanting to validate Hank's efforts on his behalf. To reciprocate the gangly youth's kindness. "Hank has?" he asked. Xavier nodded.

"I guess I should try." Kent agreed. Stop running he thought to himself, he imagined May Kent coming to the Mansion, there was no shortage of rooms, and it felt safe here.

"Good." The Professor said with a smile. "That's settled then. Tonight we'll see if we can explain your dreams."

-(*)-

David Cain checked his rifle. This was a too-fer. Target could be described as a man and his wife. The man was Richard Parker, who would be travelling under an alias, with a woman – his wife for appearances sake, who had more aliases than Cain had seen in a long time, so many he'd mentally filed her as name-undetermined. He'd memorised the mission data, rechecking it was like walking through his childhood home, exactly like that, as that was his chosen memory landscape. Cain had trained himself to remember, mind and body. He'd learned how to move through the world unnoticed, the way of the ninja, both physical and meta-physical. He had learned to conceal himself in broad daylight, he had learned how to hide from those who possessed second sight.

He used his weapons telescopic sight, and zeroed in the room's door. The curtains were closed. Had been since the couple checked in. The sniper's gun was large, clumsy on the move, but here in a predetermined location, it was a tool of great precision. The silencer on the barrel would radically reduce the rifles range, but his hiding place was close enough for that not to matter.

He'd seen Parker leave and return, but his contract stipulated both of them, so he'd settled down to wait for the right opportunity.

The small town was hardly worth a mention on the map, it had benefited from being on the interstate to New York, and had traded up on the back of motorists stopping for fuel and a bite to eat, from a few houses into a community with all the necessary trappings, a firehouse, police station and a school, but it was still a one horse town, if you extended the old phrase to include the automobile in general. His vantage point was a general store that sold everything a passing motorist might think they should want, including a lot of gadgets that plugged into a car's cigarette lighter socket. It gave Cain an uninterrupted high ground view of the cheap motel across the street whose rooms were arranged with doors facing into the central parking lot. His exit plan was a motorbike hidden behind the store's dumpster. Fast and anonymous.

As day gave way to night, he saw the couple exit the room. Twilight wasn't optimal for target recognition, the harsh lights in full darkness were better than this grey light, but the coming darkness was better for his exit strategy.

David Cain checked the contacts in his scope against the kill-contract's descriptions using his mental record. There were differences. The woman's hair was dark and cut short, but that kind of change was to be expected under the circumstances. Make up could alter skin tone, and the half-light made her complexion harder to judge, she wore gloves covering her hands, but her height and weight fit the described parameters. Untidy hair and glasses did a reasonable job of changing Parker's look, but Cain looked past these. The SHIELD agent held a carrycot, arm extended in the awkward fashion required to negotiate the door. This didn't surprise Cain, his mission brief had included that detail, to expect a baby-LDM. Information that could only come from inside SHIELD itself. Given the origin of this kill-contract it didn't surprise Cain that his employer had a mole inside Fury's operation, he probably had more than one.

This wasn't the first time Cain had done this man's wet work.

Cain breathed in, and then as he relaxed and exhaled; his finger pressed the trigger, and a heartbeat later he pressed a second time. The gun sounded two loud pops. Cain didn't miss, not at this range, and not in these relatively benign conditions. It was almost too easy. Both targets fell, the carrycot jerked from Parker's hand, tumbling to the ground, spilling the contents onto the tarmac. The baby began to wail. It was a piercing sound, unmistakable. Cain breathed in again, checked the targets through his sight. Both had been dead before they hit the ground, the heavy calibre bullet had torn into the centre mass of the torso, with massive life ending trauma to the heart and lungs. He breathed out, a heartbeat later his scope zeroed in on the baby. In the failing light the blood that welled from the child's head looked black, but the baby had suffered an injury in the fall onto the pavement. Cain bit down a curse that hissed between his clenched teeth. He didn't like surprises. SHIELD's standard issue baby LDM wasn't a sophisticated robot, certainly light years ahead of the child dolls pressed into service by less well equipped operations, but Cain had seen this LDM's specs, as included in his mission pack. The baby-LDM did a lot things real babies didn't, if needed, including an impressive self-destruct option, but this robot didn't bleed.

Cain wasted no time on this discrepancy, rather he let the anger pass. His paid for targets were down, and he returned his mind to the moment, to his escape, to leaving not evidence, physical or meta-physical of his presence. Cain cleared his brass, and collapsed the snipers rifle with practised efficiency. Moments later as the first screams from across the street rang out he was already on his motorcycle. David Cain massaged the throttle and gently pulled away from the scene, riding unnoticed into the falling darkness.


	20. Chapter 20

Doctor Reed Richards of Empire State University, working out of the Baxter Building New York wasn't at home. He was visiting Stark International's Headquarters in Manhattan. Reed sat to the right of large display, the monitor was coupled to a powerful combination microscope, although he used the more traditional ocular lenses to peer at the presented blood sample under high magnification. Howard Stark stood looking over his shoulder at the revealed image on the display to his left. Stark's hair was surprisingly still strong and dark, he was a striking figure of a man in his later sixties, and cut a dashing figure in his very expensive suit, wearing a signature pencil moustache. They said he was stone cold in business, and Reed bore this reputation in mind. It wasn't the first time their paths had crossed, and on each occasion Stark had attempted to recruit him. Richards had declined every time, but their conversations had always been interesting.

Reed by comparison was young, tall and lanky, and although still in his twenties grey hairs already flecked his temples, giving him – he was told, a distinguished look, which amused him because he usually had 99 problems, all expressed across several chalkboards in the form of mathematical equations, but a social life wasn't one of them. Reed tried to be affable when necessary, but he just didn't have the time. Despite this he was regarded as a latter day renaissance man. He'd put aside success in track and field so that he could pursue multiple degrees at university at an age when his peers were still in High School. Reed Richards was a renowned polymath; and his licensed patents had made him a rich man, though not in the same league as the super-wealthy Stark or Wayne. Richards held several doctorates, but he didn't seek wealth or fame, but was troubled by a little of both as a by-product of his research.

"Fascinating." Reed said. "But what possessed you Howard, to make the leap into human trials?"

It was a loaded question. Richards wasn't going to get himself involved in a rogue project operating outside of the law. He was sure Stark knew that, there was something else going on here, and Reed had his suspicions.

"Necessity." Stark replied, and gestured to the main display.

Blood platelets, danced across the screen, recognisable at once by their signature shape, like discus pinched in the middle by a finger and thumb, red due to the iron content of the oxygen carrying haemoglobin. That was all normal enough, but alongside them like tiny bi-planes buzzing a great Zeppelin airship were golden mesh frames. These weren't normal, and they were clearly artificial. Nature abhors a straight line, but these tiny mechanisms were constructed in angular patterns.

Reed concluded gold had been chosen because it was non-reactive and highly reliable and dependable conductor. He frowned and asked the all-important question. "So whose blood am I looking at?"

"Tony's" Howard replied. "As you see we kept this in the family."

"A child can hardly volunteer." Reed replied.

"As his guardian I consented to this experimental procedure."

Reed frowned. He had suspected this much. "I heard your son was injured in Angola by a land mine, but this choice of treatment suggests," he paused, reaching a logical conclusion, given the facts; and breathed deeply, "that his injuries were mortal."

Stark's shoulders folded forward as he leant on the console. "Reed, Tony would have died there and then if it wasn't for the rapid intervention of a crack medical team, but even with their help, he only had hours – at best."

In this moment Howard looked his full age, a teenager in World War II, as he talked, confessed to Reed his desperate gambit, the older man seemed to carry the weight of these passing years and more. "I couldn't let that happen, not when there was a chance that nanotechnology could…"

Stark paused, and with this hesitation, Reed felt he must interrupt before the old man's voice cracked. "Keep him alive, but that's all that is happening isn't it?" Reed knew it was hard question to pose, but if he was going to help the young Tony Stark, and his own values of justice and mercy compelled him to do so, he needed to know what he was getting himself into.

Howard nodded. "There's speculation in the scandal sheets that Tony is dead or on life support and or comatose, and for once they're mostly right. The experimental nanites saved him, and they're all that's keeping my boy alive.

"Brain activity?" Reed asked.

"There's enough to be optimistic." Stark said as he turned to one side, quickly typing on a keyboard causing another monitor to switch across to a view of hospital bed surrounded by racks of equipment, and in midst of it all a comatose Tony Stark."

Reed noted the extent of the visible damage to the teenager. "It looks like Tony has lost almost half his body mass."

Stark nodded with a grim nod, all the concern of a worried father expressed in his face.

"So internal life support." Reed said more to himself staring at the blood sample magnified on the first display. "From the specs you sent over with your invitation, based on your small mammal trials, I'm assuming your Nano-tech is being applied to oxygenation, toxin removal, bacterial and viral cleansing."

Stark nodded. "The nanites are augmenting Tony's basic functions, liver and kidneys, the former is showing excellent regrowth."

Reed nodded. "The liver naturally possesses impressive regenerative capability."

"One kidney remains, but with very limited function," Stark continued, "there is nanite macro-construct alongside his heart working as pump, because of extensive damage to the heart-muscle. In short Reed he's alive, but only just."

"And naturally you want more for him."

"Of course I want the world for my son." The older man replied, crossing his arms. "And I have several fortunes and conglomerate of high tech industries I can press to deliver it."

"So you came to me because of my work in nanotechnology." Reed stated shaking his head. He felt conflicted. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved with a multi-national and the politics that involved, but that was equally true that his first instinct was to be compassionate – to help the injured teenager. "Thing is I don't know how this would work Howard. I've already turned a contract with Stark Industries down, more than once."

"We can work out the details, but rest assured Reed you'll get full autonomy, intellectual property rights, and an unlimited budget."

"Perhaps, it could work." He admitted. "Do you have any thoughts as how to proceed?"

"Right now the nanites require mains power to function. So mobility is an issue, which brings me to the work you did as a student at Empire State, on a compact power source, the collaborative project with Susan Storm and Victor Latimer." Stark replied as he pressed am intercom buzzer switch next to the computer.

Reed Richard's face darkened with both anger and anguish. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut, twice. "Low blow Howard." He said in a hoarse whisper. "We are colleagues and scientists, but I know you have the resources at your disposal to understand why bringing that project up does nothing at all to help your son's cause." He stood up and in that moment he resolved to leave. Reed saw in Stark a desperate father would go to any lengths, justify crossing moral and legal boundaries - as the man who had called himself Victor Latimer had done, and Reed was certain Stark would know who Latimer _really_ was. This was a step too far for Richards.

Stark nodded clearly unsurprised by the scientist's reaction. "You are of course acquainted with Miss Storm." Howard gestured to the door.

Reed was given reason to pause once more, because Susan Storm walked into the laboratory. She was accompanied by a tall man with military bearing. "And this John Stewart." Stark introduced this stranger, but Reed only had eyes for Miss Storm. "Susan, I didn't expect… err… what are doing… err… I mean what are you working on?"

"Same old same old Reed, optical vortexes to move individual particles using beams of light, but with application to liquids, repulsing particles and creating stable energy fields."

"Of course." He mumbled. Then smiling. "Amazing progress by the way." He added, rubbing the back of neck. "I read your last paper. It was fantastic – I didn't know you were in New York. I didn't know you were working for Stark Industries, I…"

Susan shook her head and laughed interrupting him. "Reed truth is today I'm just a kid playing in a sand box."

"You're a genius Susan." Reed replied, not certain what she meant by that last remark.

Richards looked at Stark, the old man's face was impassive, and he wasn't giving anything away now. Had it all been a game, Reed wondered, emotional father one moment, poker faced stone cold business man the next, and with Susan Storm as his trump card. Reed realised he had forgotten just how much he loved Sue, and how much love hurt in a glorious exciting life affirming way.

Reed wondered what Stark had that could have bought Susan's interest?

"You really need to see this." Susan answered his unspoken question with a bright and broad smile, it was infectious and heart-warming, and very genuine, she was excited, and Reed felt the anguish of knowing it wasn't about him. "Show him John." She said to Stewart.

Reed broke away from her face, to look at the other man in the room. John Stewart raised his hand, and a flash of green erupted from his finger, specifically an emerald like ring, it snaked forward taking the form and shape of oversized human hand.

Reed was stunned. He immediately saw how Susan, whose passions was energy, given form and purpose, who had joked about Star Trek like Force Field Shields, was now so excited. The hand manipulated an office chair, but it was made of green light, light that had form and shape. "How is this possible?" He asked.

"Alien technology." John Stewart replied, replacing the chair neatly under the desk, and shutting down his energy construct. "Currently it's mapped to me, and only me, for reasons unknown."

"Where did it come from?"

"Sorry Doctor Richards. I have no idea." Stewart replied.

"Must be a hell of story." Reed observed.

Stewart nodded. "Sure is, and I'll tell you about, when you join the team."

Reed noted Stewart was loyal to Stark. Howard inspired that kind of affection from his people.

"Thing is Reed," Susan interjected, "we're learning a great deal, okay we're just scratching the surface – but we're still leaping forward, making advances than I never dreamt possible."

Richards considered the myriad of applications, idea after idea flowed from his mind. "Can you contain a vacuum?" He asked Stewart.

Stewart smiled and nodded. "And then some." He replied.

Susan expanded on his answer. Her eyes twinkled as she did so. "We haven't found anything that John's constructs are pervious too, even high energy radiation can't penetrate the shield."

Reed smiled as wide as she did, because now he knew exactly where he wanted to be, and damn the consequences.

"Okay Howard, you've finally got my attention." Reed stated. He looked to Susan. "Sue you realise if Stewart's energy shielding is effective as you're telling me, then the engine you and I developed with Victor might actually be practical."

"Absolutely." Howard said. "Which is why I took the risk of bringing that err… difficult time to your attention. I wanted to be honest with you Reed from the start. We can all benefit personally from collaboration, further our own hopes and dreams, but more importantly we could solve the biggest problem facing humanity in the coming century, clean abundant power."

The image of Tony Stark was still on the other screen. Richards guessed why Howard Stark needed a new reliable compact energy source, but he couldn't help wondering would it end there? "Good, but before we go any further I have to be sure that the door is closed, locked and bolted, on using this technology as a weapon." Reed held up his hand in apology adding. "I have to say that. You are Howard Stark after all, the biggest military contractor there is."

"There's something else you need to know about the arc reactor concept." The older man replied. "I built one with my father, we got it working in 1954, admittedly it was the size of bus, but the short story is we ran into exactly the same problems as you did."

Reed frowned, Stark's reply carried a clear although unspoken conclusion, Stark Industries had already passed on the opportunity to weaponise this technology; a working arc reactor was in effect just an unexploded bomb, if Reed could accept Stark's claim at face value. "Well I'm glad you didn't crack the world in twain." Reed said as he swallowed his bruised pride, admitting that much to himself. He found he was staring at Susan - the only girl he'd ever loved, however Susan Storm seemed as clueless as he. This was news to them both. 1954 he thought, running his hand through his hair, Einstein's beard, he'd thought his work four decades later with Sue and Victor had been cutting edge. It begged the question how was it possible? Stark wasn't the kind of man to make bold claims without them being true.

Stark lent back perching himself on the computer console, his arms crossed. "Victor Von Doom, well you know that he lied about being the poor Latverian gypsy Victor Latimer on a scholarship to Empire State, but he also lied about the origin of the research that you and he used as a basis for your prototype engine. The theory wasn't developed by his father, but rather those equations were stolen from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II."

"How do you know this…?" Reed started to ask, but then he realised the truth, he remembered Howard Stark Seniors role in the Second World War, that and an obscure historical detail. "Operation Paperclip."

Stark nodded.

"You father, Howard Senior. He was involved in the business of co-opting Nazi Scientists and secrets after World War II."

"You'd be surprised how much is still classified." Stark confirmed. "By 1945 I was working along with dad as his assistant, and he was part of a team that raided a secret installation outside of Prague. We brought back several prototypes in various states of disassembly. At that stage the Nazi engineers were cannibalising everything at hand for parts."

"Prototype what?"

"Flying Saucers." Stark said with absolute seriousness. "Most relied on imaginative use of jet and rocket engines and rotating aerofoils to create lift. There was one experimental vehicle that was radically different. Using what we'd recognise as a prototype arc reactor, though at the time it was mostly burnt out."

"They almost always do." Reed observed.

Howard continued saying. "This aircraft used the reactors power to generate magnetic lift, for flight."

Reed frowned deeply, and Stark laughed saying. "Yes Doctor Richards, what most folks would call anti-gravity." The older man adopted a more serious tone. "It's maybe a good thing most people don't know how close the Nazi's came to turning back the allied advances on the ground in 1945, if any one of a dozen or more projects had come to fruition sooner, by a matter of months maybe even weeks, then the outcome of that conflict could have been very different."

Reed sat back extending his long legs and arms in wide stance. "You can say that again." He said letting out a heavy sigh. "Of course it's why I've kept everything Sue and I did with Victor secret, burnt my notes, and erased the project from existence. Without proper containment the arc reactor concept isn't a generator, it's a potential super bomb, a bomb that makes today's nukes look like fire crackers."

"True." Stark agreed. "But it hasn't it always been so? Fire is terrible master, but a very useful slave."

The older man offered his hand.

Reed took it. "Okay I'm in." He said. "But Howard let's be very careful, lest we burn your house down and the world with it."


	21. Chapter 21

Silver Fox heard the baby cry. She looked across the room at where LDM sat in the blue carry cot, the robot moved in a semblance of life under the woollen blankets, but the wailing she could hear didn't originate from the automaton. Shocked she moved to the front of the motel room, and her hand reached for to the blue faded drapes just as the first scream rang out from across the Motel car park. There was no time to think, her instincts asserted themselves accessing her psychic senses. Silver Fox's mind reached through the closed door to be met by the unmistakable pang of violent death. Earlier that day Silver Fox had told Richard Parker that she knew that Logan had not passed from this life. The same could not be said for the SHIELD agents outside. Together they'd worked in the field, and together they'd found love among the all the bad business of espionage, walked down the aisle, held each other's hand as Peter was born. Now together they lay dead, the sense of what happened flooded into her imagination, but not the how.

Next heart beat saw Silver fox fall to the ground, a gun man, it had to be, she could feel the Parker's mortal injuries, as if a gaping hole had been opened in her own chest. Silver Fox gasped for breath, and squatting low, she crouched below the window line. Peter Parker cried outside on the tarmac. Silver Fox had a choice to make.

Less than an hour ago Mary Parker had interrupted her life. Richard's wife hadn't used the front door, because she figured that someone just could be watching. Mary's argument was two people went in that way, so two people should leave, and it was best that "she was never here". Mrs Parker had squeezed through the narrow bathroom window at the rear of the Motel with more grace than the idea suggested, moments before Peter Parker secured in a navy carry cot, very like the SHIELD LDM issue, had been passed through to Richard. Mary had brought her infant son; in her haste she had no other choice.

Silver Fox had found Mary's story difficult to process. After giving birth to Peter, Mary had worked in SHIELD's Washington headquarters, but she was a first a field agent, with those skills and habits. During her day to day work Mary had uncovered evidence that SHIELD had been compromised. Specifically person or persons unknown had accessed the details of Richard's current operation. The evidence pointed to only one conclusion someone was tracking Richard and Silver Fox, and they all knew what that could mean. Not knowing who to trust in her organisation Mary Parker felt she had only one option, and that was to warn her husband that his cover had been compromised.

Silver Fox concentrated on her internal senses, angry – why she wondered had they failed so badly? Silver Fox had not foreseen this threat; and this had contributed to her scepticism with regards to Mary Parker's story; guilt gnawed at her, she had been wrong, and at a terrible cost Mary had been proved right. Even as Silver Fox probed the surrounding landscape with her second sight, the signature of the shooter remained indistinct, adding confusion to the mix. Such a brutal double homicide should have disturbed the etheric field, as if leaving a red bloody footprint on pure white snow, but whoever was responsible for the hit had muddied their tracks. She knew it was possible with the right training to learn tricks of psychic camouflage, it didn't require any super human talent, but it did require a very disciplined mind, and when killing an utterly cold heart.

Whoever had killed Richard and Mary hadn't given a damn.

That insight revealed much to her. She did care - she cared too much, had been too preoccupied with what might have happened to Logan and the Kent boy, her deep felt emotions had clouded her judgement and her vision. Silver Fox recognised the limits of mind based powers, she understood how her psychological condition impacted her performance as much as an athlete's physical condition impacted on their track times. She realised had been distracted, effectively lamed, and now Richard and Mary Parker were dead. Peter was orphaned.

This bitter realisation shocked her into action.

Okay she thought, right now she couldn't rely on her second sight, and she couldn't be certain that the shooter would be satisfied with two down, but she couldn't leave the baby crying in the twilight outside, alone in the night.

Silver Fox reached up, grabbed the door handle and slid outside. Night was coming, the dark rolled on from west, and the shadows offered some cover, but as she stepped forward onto the parking lot she did under the glare of the street lights. Peter was crying, he was bleeding from a cut to his head, she told herself not to panic, that head wounds always bleed profusely, even the minor ones. Reaching down she picked up the baby, and ignored the fallen carry cot. Using the blanket he still clung to she stemmed the blood welling from Peter's head. She ran to the rental car Richard had hired, there was no point in subterfuge now; she had exposed herself rescuing the child. If the shooter was still here, then she'd know anytime.

Silver Fox cranked the engine into life, she reasoned luck was on her side, as she hadn't been shot. Mary had been right all along. By leaving together the Parkers had done their duty. They'd made sure if anyone was out there, watching the motel, then they'd have seen Richard and Silver Fox leaving. Two in two out. It had, with the benefit of hindsight been a terrible gamble; although at the time none of them had really believed it to be. How could Mary or Richard known about the hidden gunman? That kind of foresight was her skill set.

This choice, Mary exchanging places with her, so Silver Fox could leave later by the bathroom window; walking out of the motel room with Richard, had cost the Parkers their lives. It was an awful legacy to carry, but first her duty now lay with their orphaned son. For the second time in this life, Silver Fox found herself in charge of an infant, one had been extraordinary from the moment he had arrived, but Peter was ordinary, human, and in need of medical attention, and after that? Silver Fox knew Richard had family, a brother who had served, and a man who Jonathan Kent believed in, someone who could be trusted. Silver Fox would head back to New York.

-(*)-

Abraham Cornellius sat in Luthor's private office suite within the Secret Luthor Corp Yukon Facility. Rooms richly appointed in a contemporary minimalist fashion, black leather, white and chrome fixtures. Cornellius watched the large screen wall mounted monitor, video playback showed Weapon X. The subject vaulted across the floor of the laboratory towards Lionel. The speed of the recording had been adjusted, dialled back. Slow motion replay made these explosive and violent movements appear graceful, and Abraham was glad for that; glad the brutality was diluted. The blood spray hung in the air. It appeared other worldly and moved like molasses on glass, not falling like hot rain as he remembered. He could see himself, cowering under the command console, a shape in the shadows, to the left of Lionel Luthor. The billionaire appeared statue still, which was accurate, as he barely moved except maybe to break into a smile throughout the seconds following Weapon-X's explosive return to consciousness. Abraham chose not to relive this moment, but instead to distance himself from it – to review the event as a dispassionate observer.

The glass containment vessel had shattered; the subject had emerged cutting through the support staff who had the misfortune to stand in his way. Weapon-X's bestial rage was terrifying. Abraham remembered glancing at the numbers, and he had being shocked at the volume of adrenaline that had been pumped into Weapon-X's system moments before; the resulting berserker madness was explained by this irregularity. His first thought was to blame had been human error, the dreaded misplaced decimal point had created many anomalies in scientific studies and popular culture. Cornellius' second thought was darker, and now he was certain correct. Lionel had deliberately arranged this. The adrenaline jolt intended to bring Weapon-X out of his drug induced coma had been delivered at a dose ten times that of his specific.

"The subject again demonstrated resistance to your conditioning protocols." Luthor stated.

"He was over stimulated." Cornellius observed.

His boss took a slug of whiskey from the cut glass tumbler in his hand, and kicked back in his chair as if he was watching a game. "Perhaps, but I needed to test a theory. I needed to know why the first memory adjustment protocol failed. I needed to push Weapon-X beyond the optimal, to test the conditioning under extraordinary circumstances."

Confirmation though Abraham, Lionel had done this as test – a test that had claimed the lives of five technicians and changed for ever the lives of as many more. Yet Abraham couldn't deny the facts. After Logan's previous escape, almost ten years before, Cornellius had extensively revised his memory altering drug regime. Adding to this inter cranial intervention; physical brain scrambling to specific regions, this _should_ have erased the Subjects memories. Yet Weapon-X had emerged hyped on a massive adrenaline rush able to recognise and so target the one man in the room who was ultimately responsible for his condition. He drew new conclusions based on this data. "He may lay down memories into his wider nervous system." Abraham suggested.

Luthor nodded. "That was my theory, literally a gut feeling, whether instinctual or on some level conscious Weapon-X retained enough of his old identity to single me out."

"I will adjust the regime again." Abraham rubbed his hands together, trying to come up with solutions to this. Truth be told he was running out of options.

"Third time lucky" Lionel noted.

Cornellius winced. Luthor had demanded from the outset an obedient super-soldier, one who would follow orders without question. The brainwashing process had been successfully trialled in a number of human test subjects prior to the Subject's selection. They needed someone able to survive the Adamantium Bonding Process, initially this seemed an impossible, there had been failures, but this individual's incredible accelerating regenerative mutation made him an ideal candidate, his claws were a bonus, but this same mutative advantage had conversely made the established memory adjustment protocol less effective. A problem that only came to light shortly before the original procedure had been scheduled to take place. Weapon-X had emerged early from his drug induced coma - for as yet still unexplained reasons, and promptly escaped. Logan had gone onto hide in plain sight of Lionel's extensive clandestine operation, working on the Kent Farm in British Columbia, albeit with extensive sub dermal appearance altering implants, adopting the alias Jimmy Olsen.

"This is my favourite part." Lionel said. The video played on in slow excruciating motion, and Weapon-X's hands were raised, the metal blades that extended from them gleamed, muscles tensed to leap at the statue like bearded billionaire, so to deliver the killing blow.

At the last moment, Weapon-X snapped back his head, his teeth bared, as if he was a dog caught at the limit of an invisible leash. His kill strike fell short, broken mid stride, he tumbled to his knees.

"On this occasion," Lionel said with a broad smile, "I had a plan b."

Abraham Cornellius looked at the older man and waited for his theatrical reveal. He had worked with Lionel long enough to know how he enjoyed moments like this, enjoyed asserting his genius.

"By the way, it was Silver Fox." Luthor said. "Who engineered the subjects escape, last time." He took a swig of his generous drink. "I'm certain now she must have interfered with his drug regime, you wouldn't have noticed that, not while she battered her eyelashes at you."

Cornelius swallowed hard, and stared at his feet. It was inevitable that Silver Fox's duplicity would reflect badly on him, on this facility. "If so, she must had hexed me and the others, with her mutant powers." He mumbled.

Luthor laughed. It was an unexpected reaction from him, Abraham looked up at him wide eyed.

"Hell she must had worked on both of us." Lionel confessed. It was a rare admission from him of fallibility, and Abraham felt he'd been thrown a life line.

"If she hadn't been here to screw us over," Luthor continued, "then I expect the subject would have undergone the previous Admantium Bonding Process successfully." His boss leant forward. "Are you aware of what that would have meant?" Lionel asked.

Abraham considered this possible alternative history, what might have happened if Logan hadn't emerged from his drug induced coma early, after a moment of thought he said. "I suppose it could have all been a great deal worse." Lionel gave an encouraging nod, so he continued saying, "given that the conditioning process – because the subjects unique physiology, had not properly taken hold."

Luthor agreed, saying. "Yes the process was flawed in this case; had it worked as expected, had his conditioning proved stable, then waking the subject early would have achieved nothing, because he would have done nothing, not without orders from me."

Abraham nodded in agreement, and said. "We would have had a rogue weapon on our hands, one with full advantages of that earlier Admantium Bonding Process."

"Yes – exactly, that is my point Doctor." Luthor agreed. "Such a weapon would have been formidable, and with the subjects original personality in place, unpredictable, and worse uncontrollable." Lionel frowned deeply The billionaire at once became more menacing, in tone and body language, leaning forward, staring at him, saying. "And this time we risked the same disaster only more so. A rogue weapon with all the added advantages of my hybrid alloy nano mesh; Adamantonite, bonded to his skeleton and those oh so wicked claws."

Cornellius felt the blame settle on his shoulders once more. "Err, the subject's reaction was unexpected, of course, but so was the erroneous adrenaline dose." Abraham noted, quickly he said. "Sir, I don't understand how you stopped Weapon-X, but obviously I'm glad you did. Otherwise you're very right, we'd all be dead, and he'd be on the run, driven by whatever is left of his memory and identity, doing God knows what. So again I'm very grateful that you had a plan b. I owe you my life."

Was this it Abraham wondered? He was kind of relieved, after so long, for an ending to this life of service to Lionel. Any ending seemed good enough, even a final one.

"It was me." A voice declared, out of nowhere or so it seemed. Cornellius tried to understand, he was by any measure a very intelligent, if somewhat timid man, his lack of courage sometimes blunted his intellect, but despite his instinct to withdraw into himself, he sensed something was amiss with his perceptions. That there was something at the periphery of his vision, something - no someone hidden in the shadows.

"Well at Lionel's invitation of course." The disembodied voice added.

"I should introduce you," Lionel chuckled. "This is an old colleague of mine. Doctor Abraham Cornellius, I'd like you to meet Mr Maxwell Lord."

A man emerged from the shadows, like an image once blurred now focused properly. Lord was dressed in sharp black suit, he wore a silk polo necked shirt, also black.

"Can I get you a drink?" His employer asked Lord, shaking his own tumbler; the ice clinked against the glass.

"No thank you Lionel, I'm fine, though the Professor looks like he needs one."

Maxwell Lord appeared to be in his late twenties at most. Abraham was troubled by this; how was such a young man an 'old colleague' of man in his seventies? It was an anomaly that he felt unable to question; his own position within the organisation was too precarious. He instead smiled at the other man, and said to Lionel. "Pleased, I'm sure, and yes I think I will have a drink."

Maxwell Lord crossed to the bar. In the time it took Lord to pour him a generous measure of the billionaire's liquor gave Cornellius time to reflect on events, in particuler what had happened to Weapon-X on the laboratory floor, how the subject been stopped before he could deliver the kill strike.

As he took the glass from the outstretched hand of the younger man he looked over at Lionel bemused by his conclusion. "Mr Lord has the ability to influence minds." He ventured.

"Impressive isn't it." Lionel confirmed "Brought Weapon-X to heel under extreme conditions."

"You're too kind." Max replied. "It took me several seconds to control what was essentially an empty vessel, a man running on base instinct, without a memory or sense of self."

Lord sat down, and lounged in a black leather seat, close to Lionel's own. Max sipped his own drink. Then said. "It's an interesting case – this mutant. I think Doctor Cornellius need not be too hard on himself. I don't think any intervention on a medical level was going to be sufficient to bring the beast to heel."

Lionel nodded. "That's why I brought you into this Max." The Billionaire smiled, it appeared self-congratulatory.

"I imagine controlling someone so single minded is actually harder than someone with a myriad of thoughts ongoing?" Abraham asked Lord. He then had a troubling second thought; second guessing himself.

Maxwell Lord titled his head, and then nodded. "Correct Professor, it is often that way. The single minded are much harder to distract." He paused and placed his glass on Luthor's desk. Max folded his arms across his chest, saying. "And yes Doctor you don't know – can't know, whether that observation was your conclusion, or whether I influenced you, nudged your thoughts in the right direction."

Lionel laughed again, as if amused by this disturbing notion, and emptied his whiskey glass. "Doctor Cornellius I want you to work with Max. I need my super-soldier brought to a place where he's ready and willing to follow my orders." Lionel placed a hand on the young man's shoulder. "I'm sure together you'll deliver me a functional Weapon-X. One I can deploy in the field."

Cornellius was dumbfounded. How could Lionel trust a man who could by his own admission influence and even control another human being? Abraham wondered who was he working for - really working for; was it the old devil he knew, Lionel Luthor, or the new devil he didn't know, Maxwell Lord?


	22. Chapter 22

Charles Xavier watched as Kent collapsed himself into the dream laboratory's bed. Outside the moon and stars speckled a clear night sky, while inside the Mansion the Professor was joined by the young but brilliant Henry McCoy in this converted suite. Xavier was pleased that Kent followed through, remembering his instructions; a steady and slow breath, to unwind the muscles, and relax.

Xavier guided his wheel chair into the adjoining room, where Hank monitored his new friend's vitals. Sensors had been attached to the Kent boys' temple and chest, and in the other room the school's newest student, at last had allowed himself, after so many days and nights of wakefulness, to sleep.

In the darkness bright Computer displays tracked his pulse, and brain activity. A video feed tracked Kent's face. Together with his young student Xavier waited for the dream sleep cycle to begin. As Kent's eye-lids began to flicker indicating REM sleep the Professor closed his own eyes and held his body still. Xavier withdrew from the outside world into an extended mental landscape. In this self-generated meditative trance the experienced telepath could step through the physical confines of his own mind and immerse himself into the consciousness of another living being, creating a Psychic bridge.

In this case an alien boy child.

There were differences between their species; differences were expected, just as there were between humans and mutants. Still this meant the Professor had to work harder to create a connection. With Kent, Xavier had to start again from the beginning, as if he were a novice, and he sought to find a mutual center, a point of agreement, where common experiences could bring their minds together. Charles remembered his childhood self; a boy called by another name. He revisited in his own memories the moment when that boy had first created a psychic bridge, a link between his consciousness and someone else. This experience had proven transformative.

Alexander Charles Xavier Luthor had been a troubled child, brilliant but socially inept, so much so that his father had first thought he was retarded. Red headed Lex had been late to speak, to walk, barely intelligible as child in kindergarten, ostracized from his classmates. Only his mother could reach him. She had given the name Charles after her late father, and only her touch gave Lex a sense of security and belonging, of love. In time Lex had started to communicate, only to discover that other children couldn't understand a word he was saying, they hadn't his grasp of math's and science, they weren't interested in nuclear power, genetics, and socio-political economic theory. His father took an interest in his 'backward' son, realizing the opposite was the case, and now he bullied him too, in a different way. Lex Luthor was placed several years – several grades ahead of his biological age; separated from his doting mother for months at a time – secured in a boarding school for high achievers, while she suffered and died from her terminal cancer. He was alone, whether there or with Lionel. The older man now boasted he had a savant genius for a child. Bullied mercilessly, both at home and at school as the richer kid among the rich kids, the slight red headed boy he grew to hate these older so called brighter children, to loathe their lack of imagination and intellect. Then at his lowest point in his life, shortly after his mother's untimely death, his mutation asserted itself.

In a single moment, as he lay on the floor of the changing room feeling the bite of wrapped wet towels into 'rats tails' whipping his naked skin as his bullies chanted "no hair" and laughed at his pre-pubescence. Lex Luthor saw himself through the eyes of his tormentors, for a brief moment- but one that for him seemed to last an eternity. He stood in their shoes, he became them, he experienced their hopes and fears, appreciated the passions and terrors that drove them. He saw himself as they saw him. He realized they were already afraid of him, and until that moment, all Lex wanted and wished was to make them -and the whole damn world, fear him. In that moment Lex realised that it was already true. Fear didn't stop them bullying him, it drove them to it. Fear wasn't the answer, it was the problem.

Charles sometimes wondered what might have happened to the boy he had been – to Lex, had he not been born a mutant telepathy. He guessed at a dark path, one where his loathing for Lionel would have driven him to hate, perhaps grappling for power – seeking to prove himself to Lionel by usurping him, making Lionel and the world fear him. However he was changed by his insight into human nature, altered by his burgeoning psychic abilities. In time he chose to embrace the memory of his late mother. He had left Lex Luthor behind and now used only the names she had given him, and here at his mother's family home he strove to live up to her ideals.

In this moment the Professor felt affinity for the Kent boy, he found the connection he was looking for. He too had suffered great loss; death and separation, and the responsible party was his father, Lionel.

The Professor began to move through Kent's memories, watching and waiting for the dreams to begin. In the child's mind Xavier saw how the dark of night was something Kent only remembered. Darkness was a fleeting shadow in Kent's farthermost recollections. This child saw as clearly at night as he did during the day, albeit in different less vivid shades of colour. The Professor descended deeper into the boy's mind searching for answers, Kent's first clear memories were of the farm, his Ma and Pa, alongside the crackle of the fireplace, the wonder of Christmas revealed through the landing rails as he peered at the presents scattered under the tree in the living room below.

But these happy memories didn't colour Kent's recent dreams. Since Jonathan Kent's murder, sleep had meant night terrors. Today, like yesterday, and tomorrow Reilly Kent grieved for his Pa, while his new outward persona, Kent Logan bottled it all up inside, but at the same time Charles Xavier also felt there was more to this grief, something greater still than the death of Jonathan Kent.

The Professor reflected like many of his kind, this alien child had been forced to grow up very quickly indeed.

The dream grew dark, Xavier saw the brute Sabre Tooth's bloodied claws, fire ripping through Kent's childhood home; these nightmares began with these horrors, only to become more terrifying still.

"A dark sky littered by stars, the landscape is washed out greys. Whites made silver under the moon, broken jagged by black indistinct trees and their shadows." Xavier dictated, a Dictaphone was built into his chair, it recorded his observations. "Like a black and white film, as if from another time and place." The Professor pushed against these memories, intending to create a mental wall between them and the Kent boy. "In this peculiar nightmare he feels weak and ailing." Xavier added all the time willing the child to settle into a peaceful sleep.

The Professor found himself struggling to succeed.

"Observation; these comparable memories of sickness and pain connect Kent's recent trauma to this older dark horror, and to another as yet an undefined then.

"In the dream darkness Kent experiences an incapacitating nausea." Xavier dictated. "This is the same sensation he remembers during Victor Creed's attack on his parents Farm."

The Professor noted the memory now replayed in the child's dreams. "Creed used an unidentified luminescent green stone against the Kent boy; it functioned almost like some evil magic totem. Now the same agony was here filling his dark nightmare.

"There isn't only pain, there is a sense of great loss too, and something else – another indistinct memory, I see something large, hungry and bestial." Xavier stopped dictating, he felt the bleed of emotion across the psychic link – this was something far more terrible even than Victor Creed.

"I am forging a memory anchor in his current dream-scape." Xavier noted. "I shall attempt to follow the emotional bleed back deeper into the child's subconscious to determine a remedial action."

Xavier recognized the signs, he'd seen many times how the mind buried unpleasant memories, locked them down, bolted them fast, and hid them from conscious recollection.

There was a barrier. The Professor perceived it visually, imagined against the mental landscape of Kent's subconscious. The barrier took the form of a wall of ice crystal, diamond pure, appearing miles high, miles thick. A boundary between the boy's life with the Kent's, and whatever had come before. Xavier mentally tugged on his psychic anchor to the present, reassuring himself that he was still connected and in conscious control of this dream journey, before drifting deeper into the child's repressed memories.

There was no posted sign, written plain, it wasn't necessary, Xavier knew intuitively what this great wall meant, what lay beyond it, his lips breathless mouthed the words. "Here be Monsters."

What Xavier could not see, his eyes closed and attention turned inward, was the expression on Henry McCoy's face.

Hank stared at Professor, his young students face was wrinkled with worry.

And Hank knew two certain things:

Xavier could not see what he saw, the Professor wasn't in the room so to speak, and so he couldn't see the wild spikes on the display measuring Kent's brain activity, or see the video feed of the sleeping boy moving erratically in his dreams in the next room.

The second certainty was the Professor's standing instructions.

There were clear rules that were to be followed always when Xavier journeyed deep into the consciousness of another person. The Professor was not to be interrupted.

Hank agonised over what he should do next. He could see this wasn't a normal situation.

Xavier was usually the personification of calm, especially when he was telepathically engaged. Yet right now the older man was showing signs of distress, and exertion. Beads of perspiration clung to his brow and bald pate, his stern face was crossed with tension. The Professor's hands gripped the arms of his chair tightly.

Racked by indecision Hank finally dialed an internal line raising Raven Darkholme from her bed.

Raven arrived quickly, she wore her hair red, and her suit was jet black, she was as ever immaculately dressed, even now, Hank on the other hand looked as crumpled and disheveled as ever, and worse, unslept.

Raven lent in close staring at the professors skin, she felt his pulse. "You did the right thing Hank." She said drawing back, and pulling up a chair."

"What can we do?"

"We stick to the Professor's protocols." Raven replied reaffirming what Hank already knew. She stood watching the movements of the Kent boy in the other room on the monitor. "And we wait." She added looking at the Professor.

Hours past as they watched the Xavier's quiet battle. Raven said little, Hank didn't try to change that.

For their mentor this was an inward struggle, and one conveyed by the smallest of movements, a twitch of the Professor's hand and or his face. Other times their mentor was motionless, but still locked into his trance like state. In the other room Kent moved too, there was communality, a shared rhythm between them. Hank had no idea what was happening -what the Professor was seeing, but he believed it was terrible.

The dog growled. It wasn't aggressive, not in the least, it was playful, friendly even, but revealing teeth that seemed to belong to another time and place, like sabres they glinted with unnatural clarity. Xavier observed the moment through the incredible lucidity of the alien child's eidetic memory.

This was the world behind the barrier. Finding the crack meant swimming against the bleed of memories that were trickling through into the present, the source of the maddening night terrors. Passing through the imagined ice-crystal wall had been confusing, disorientating, as if thousands upon thousands upon thousands of voices had been calling out to him at once, bombarding Xavier with information he could not begin to process. Only his mental shields honed by hours upon hours of meditative practice had prevented the Professor's consciousness being overwhelmed by the torrent of information. Emerging exhausted on the other side, he had wanted to join Kal in sleep.

Kal! Xavier thought excited and with this realisation he pushed onward. He now knew the boy's birth name, and the Professor fought his own exhaustion excited by curiosity. Kal was super baby in human terms, remembering so much more, and with so much clarity, and this world the child recalled was not Earth, its norms were not human ones. Instead the colours reverberated like noise, the experience was synesthetic, and the air was thick almost like water, lending a surreal quality as if seeing an animated oil painting. The surrounding landscape, the gardens of a palatial residence that rose defiantly tall from the surrounding vegetation, characterized by stout stems, trees of sorts, with rainbow leaves were as broad as they were tall. Insects of a sought swam through the air, even more alien than those on Earth. Seen against a strange backdrop of pink craggy canyon, then Xavier saw this was nothing of the sort, instead Kal was looking at the insects as they flew over the surface of his own hand, these flyspeck things magnified as if through a microscope. Here was a baby with vision so acute it could fix on the infinitesimal tiny, and distant. Yet at the same time Xavier felt Kal struggling against a great weight, the gravity of the world pulled at his bones, and the babe grunted as he struggled to move towards... Krypto. The dog was as alien as the insects, the closer Kal looked, the more detail was added to the memory. The Professor recognised the canine-like animal was really an example of convergent evolution, its massive bones carried equally massive muscle, as the white furred beast moved through the heavy air, each hair sparkled like a fibre optic cable, diffusing a rainbow spectrum. Above them a huge red star dominated the day, an enormous ruby immersed in oil, covering half the sky, pulsing radiation into the viscous atmosphere. Xavier knew this, he knew Rao shone down on Krypton. The Professor realised some of the information frozen into the mental construct he had perceived as a vast crystal ice wall had seeped through into his own consciousness, enough that he could understand what he saw through the baby's memories.

Kal struggled, his pudgy hand pushing toward the shaggy mutt's face, grabbing at last a handful of the white fur. The beast woofed after a fashion, a sound so deep, so bass as to make little Kal shake, but there was nothing but love in the huge canine's manner. Kal giggled, his naked skin soaking in the ambient radiation of the great red star. Could this be possible he mused, could millions of years of evolution create a human being indistinguishable from an Earthling, yet one able to process solar energy. Strengthened by the old sun's punishing radiation, Kal drags his torso upright using Krypto for leverage, and then falling forward into a crawl; he resists the incredible pull of the super-massive and super-dense world that is Krypton to make a halfway successful attempt at locomotion.

Xavier felt Kal lifted into another arms, a face, beautiful and filled with love, his Mother, Lara. The emotional feedback coupled with the data bleeding through from the hidden repository in Kal's mind was too much, forcing the Professor to pull back. Xavier retreated behind his defenses like a turtle would its shell. It was clear to the Professor that the alien child's nightmares were as a result of the fracture in the mental wall, the barrier between these repressed memories of his home-world and his mind, but nothing could prepare the Professor for the scene that these buried memories now revealed.

There were monsters and they were terrible.

"Jor-El!" Lara called out as she ran into the room from the outside. The door closed automatically behind her, a transparent barrier. Lara's long hair was disheveled, and dust rose from her cloak. Around her the mote filled air exploded like fireworks.

A calm disembodied voice announced. "Contaminant neutralisation program complete.

"Madam Lara you are not wearing your Com-Net headband, would you like me to print you a new one?"

"No." Lara shouted, and then she continued after catching her breath. "Jor, the infected K-Rell ectobots have begun metabolising matter, they are sending hard constructs against fortified buildings – I saw them attacking Fort Kryptonopolis."

"It was inevitable once the contagion began to spread." Jor-El replied. "The Protocol was designed to target the greatest threat to its purpose, in this case our defence network and work backwards. The infection is spreading through the trans-human neural network at an exponential rate; leveraging each infected Kryptonian to pull more power from the core to power the K-Rell constructs." He touched a golden coloured metal head band. "I'm still trying to run counter measures but the virus is evolving faster than I can develop my algorithm."

"It's too late." Lara stated. "Jor, you must sever your connection to the Com-Net, the contagion it's almost here – people, our neighbours are already falling victim, please Jor, I can't lose you, not now, not yet."

The Professor's psychic perspective was skewed as it must be, the observer; Kal was a child seated on the floor and beside the ever vigilant alien canine, looking up at his parents, fascinated by their passionate exchange.

Kal looked around the shape of the alien dog like animal Krypto, and past his mother, beyond to the outside. Kal's memories of this moment included images of the wider community, as seen through the room's floor to ceiling glass walls. The street for want of a better description was a wide avenue, which more like a park than a thoroughfare, impressive houses rose from the wide squat vegetation in defiance of Krypton's crushing gravity. The child was able to see clearly at great distances even through the thick atmosphere of this alien world. Xavier saw men and women, aliens, but human-like, falling to the ground, some clutched at their head bands, but all seemed to be caught up in some kind of neurological fit.

He could hear Lara's voice. "I couldn't reach my post. The Defence Station was locked down and under attack."

Jor responded. "You had to try, it was your duty my Warrior Princess."

Kal was watching fascinated as outside the window, in the avenue, dust had risen from the ground, as if driven by a whirl wind, taking the form of pulsating twisters a few feet in size, dancing violently around the fallen Kryptonians.

"Jor!" Lara screamed his father's name.

Kal turned away, drawn to his mother's voice. Seeing his Father's agonised face, Kal felt fear, confusion, he let out a cry of distress. Krypo licked Kal's face almost immediately, almost obscuring events in the room. Xavier caught sight of Jor, the scientist tore a thin metal headband from his temple, it sparked brightly as if objecting to a connection being broken between it and the wearer.

At the same time Jor-El's green suit reacted to this assault, by changing colour, but not the dark hue of his cloak, that remained the same deep red. The suit Kal's father wore had the appearance of armour, that is to say it seemed to be made of individual pieces joined together, but unlike metal it was flexible as cloth, one that shifted colour to a deep blue before the child's eyes. The alien crest that took pride of place also changed from a flaming image of Rao to another, a crest in red and gold which looked like a stylised serpent or perhaps the letter S.

"I am fine." Jor-El gasped. "The inoculation program held. The virus won't feed from my nightmares."

"Your armour" She said "You've take the House's Battle Colours." Lara stepped closer to her husband, her long red cloak moved slowly in the heavy air, revealing a similar garb. "Frankly I'm glad to see the back of that Science Counsel Uniform. Damn them."

Her husband turned to Kal's mother his face stern with worry his eyes brimmed with emotion. "Yes darling, we're both warriors today." He said.

"So it's really happening – just as you predicted." Lara said gravely.

Jor-El nodded. "Only more quickly" Self-recrimination echoed heavy in his tone.

"If only the Science Council had listened to you" Lara countered "You warned them Jor. You told them that they couldn't be certain of their predictive model, that the core had been irreparably changed. You told them what would happen to Krypton if our core's instability triggered the Planet Killer's offensive programming." Lara struck the console with her gloved fist. "Trying to stabilise the ageing core with of all things - the ultimate destroyer of worlds..."

"...was considered to be the safer option than attempting mass evacuation." Jor-El interrupted.

He sighed and said. "The strain the infected minds are placing on Krypton's ailing core is rising exponentially; it is hastening the inevitable death of our world."

"How long do we have?"

"Not long, a few hours at best." Shaking his head Jor said with anger. "If only I'd had more time I could have fire-walled the space port installations – perhaps some of us could have made it to the shuttles, got off world." Lara reached for him, her hand to his arm, she pressed against his back.

"I can still manage your escape from here." He said. "In case I couldn't defend our regional node from the contagion I isolated the house's backup system. The house is now independent of Krypton's Com-Net. Were locked in, and the virus is locked out."

Lara frowned. "But that means doing everything manually from here?" Kal's mother said her voice hesitant.

"Yes." Jor stated. His face lost in thought. "Damn touch interface is so slow." He spat, as his hands danced in the air, moving through three dimensional holographic projections, the symbols looked related to the sigil he and his wife wore; an alien alphabet.

"I won't leave you." Lara said.

Jor sighed. "Yes you can, and you must, for Kal's sake.

Lara released him shaking her head. Tears fell from her eyes.

"I am certain that Zor-El received my message." Jor-El said, his voice full of hope. Kal's father gestured to a holographic image of Krypton, the globe turned in the air beside him becoming a flattened map of this world. Across this the distribution of the contagion was mapped out in real time. The virus was spreading from apparently random points on the world, a red stain it bled across the regions. As Jor-El moved his fingers the image focused in, so that Xavier was able to determine that the virus was leaping from city to city across a spider's web of interconnections. "Argo City is relatively speaking the most isolated node of our planet wide Com-Net, I'm positive this gave Zor time to act on my warning."

"What did your brother say?" Lara asked.

"He didn't, but Argo city has gone dark.

"He raised the city new defences? It is the only logical explanation. His hard shield was designed to prevent what happened to Kandor repeating itself. Nothing will get through. Not even the Doomsday Protocol."

Krypto growled.

Kal turned away from his parents, Xavier seeing this world, these memoires through the babes eyes saw what had caused the hound's hackles to rise.

Outside the dust was coalescing into shapes, muddy coloured golem like creatures emerged from the the thick dusty whirls, built it seemed from the very substance of Krypton. Hulking beasts with stone like jagged projections, horn like from their joints, from knuckles, wrist, elbow, shoulders and knees.

The calm automated voice rang out once more. "Threat detected. Raising shielding."

As the beasts charged the shutters snapped upwards at lightning speed, closing off the outside world. The interior lights shifted up a gear to compensate.

"Will the shutters hold?" Lara asked.

"They were designed to resist multiple atomic explosions, so given the K-Rell constructs, not for very long." Jor replied. "But long enough." He added.

Outside Kal could hear the sound of the pounding, the noise was the strongest memory, the bleed into his consciousness, and the monsters were coming.


	23. Chapter 23

I'm the only girl, she thought to herself.

It wasn't strictly true. Raven Darkholme was the Professor's deputy, and there were women among the support staff, but among the handful of students at the Xavier School for the Gifted, there was Jean Grey, and she felt conspicuous because of her gender.

It was odd but while the Mutant genome was found on the X chromosome it had been so far more commonly expressed in the male, due the Professor explained to the role of testosterone both in the womb and at puberty.

The Professor wasn't sure this would always be case, but it was reality now.

"Dude, those shoes are just so last century." The familiar laugh brought her attention to this present she looked for Robert Drake.

They were in yard at the back of the Mansion. It was break time for want of a better description. Fresh cold January air meant her breath misted as she exhaled. She walked the short distance between her and the boys.

"These are American made work boots." Kent Logan replied matter of fact to Drake's bait.

Kent Logan had been at the school for six years. Unlike Hank McCoy and the boy they called Angel, Kent kept himself to himself. McCoy was only a few years older, and Kent was her age thereabouts, the wrong side of fourteen. She and Bobby had been students for about six months, since the last summer of the twentieth century. The last year had changed their lives forever, because each of their mutant powers had emerged alienating them from both their peers and their loved ones. The Xavier School for the Gifted was what neither society or close family were able to be, welcome and accepting of their difference.

Jean watched as the boys looked each other up and down. They were polar opposites; on the one hand there was Bobby, a lanky pale skinned youth, while Kent was broad shouldered, filling out already with lean muscle. Kent leant against the wall of the Xavier Mansion's rear elevation. Behind the main house's the utility wing, there was this large paved yard, bounded by high gated wall, with a range of two story outbuildings in a L shape making up the rectangle. Jean Grey was around Drake's age, but she was taller than Bobby, as tall as Kent, but Jean reckoned that this Logan kid had some growing up to do. With Bobby was Carter Warren Worthington-Hall, the third, to give him his full East Coast title, and nearly fifteen years old. The C.W was buttoned down in a long coat, giving him a bulky rounded appearance, a coat that hid the most obvious mutation among their group. Warren had adopted the name Angel Hawk for good reason, he carried a pair of wings folded tight against his back. Even here he liked to stay covered up. Jean sensed he was torn between the thrill of his abilities and the shame of being different. He was a latent telekinetic too, although his psychic ability was local, it allowed him to counteract the pull of gravity, that is to fly. The Professor had explained it with a chalk diagram of man with sufficient muscle mass to enabled powered flight, the required pectoral size was grossly inhuman. Angel's subconscious control over gravity meant his wings functioned more like the props on an airship, moving his psychically buoyant body. C.W could extend this effect to persons and objects he was in contact with, there were limits of course, but Angel was pushing these with Xavier's help.

He was deeply conflicted in another way. Carter Warren Worthington-Hall had been forced from the gilded cage of a elite society life, ostracised by the physical changes wrought by his mutation. Rescued by Xavier almost seven years ago and given a home, Angel Hawk had yet to define who he really was. That said C.W possessed the confidence that only an abundance of money brings.

"What do you think C.W?" Bobby asked.

"Thrift store for sure." Angel answered,his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his very expensive full length coat.

With an attitude and a mop of unruly blond air, ice blue eyes, skater pants and sneakers; Robert 'Bobby' Drake was more unthinking than unkind. So direct to be transparent, dressed in a loose fitting untucked shirt, the cold winter wind whipped it aflutter like a dark flag.

"These boots can stand up to hard use." Kent continued. "They have to." He added with a smile which said a great deal without saying anything at all.

"Great for dumpster diving I'm sure." Drake cracked a smile at his own joke.

"Bobby just shut up already." She told him. Drake was very much a newly minted teenager, conscious of C.W.'s wealth, aware that Angel was at home with this Mansion, an scion to a fortune equal to the Xavier's. He wanted to fit in. With her words all Bobby could do was stare at her like a deer caught in headlights.

Girl Power.

"Sorry Jean." Bobby mumbled.

Right now Kent was channelling Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront, an old leather jacket worn over a white T shirt, not so much a gesture to this the first month of the new millennium she thought but rather a style statement, because like shirt sleeved Bobby, Kent seemed impervious to the chill wind. She like Angel was bundled up against the cold, wearing a goose down jacket, gloves and a scarf. Kent's worn jeans were rolled into turn ups above worn but well cared for foot wear of contention.

"What's going on here?" A familiar voice demanded. "Are you okay Jean?"

"I'm fine Scott." She answered.

Scott Summers was a fraction shorter than her, he too had some growing to do, but he'd learned to take charge following the lead of his father – a Major in the USAF. He'd been with the school only a few months longer than her and Bobby, coming in the Spring of 1999. He wore his black hair short, dark glasses that had a deep red tinge covered his eyes, these weren't corrective in the traditional sense, but Summers needed them to function nonetheless. Unchecked his eyes acted as a conduit for some otherworldly energy with incredible destructive potential. Xavier had given them to him, who had made them and of what, wasn't clear. The Professor had only offered that it had been a doctor who was an expert in unexplained forces. With the glasses in place, for the first time since his powers manifested, Scott had been able to open his eyes. Without them he was functionally blind or a machine of wanton destruction. It made Summers in her estimation the closest thing to a living weapon among the School's first Class of Students. His optic blasts made him a living tank meets bulldozer. He was working on precision targeting. They were all works in progress, but Summers was dangerous.

She was telekinetic, useful for remotely moving things from here to there, and she also suspected that she was an empath, a sort of passive telepath. This gift wasn't in the same league as the Professor's incredible powers, she had decided; but Jean was certain she had a sense of what people were feeling, what was hidden behind the surface of another persons words and actions.

"Nothing to worry about here bub." Kent told Summers. Scott frowned and moved between them. "He's not bothering you is he Jean."

"No." She said, working it, she added a dismissive wave of her hand, followed by a toss of her auburn hair, she put her back to Scott, and faced the other way, pointing at both Angel and Drake, then Kent. "Bobby was just offering Kent some fashion advice."

"Because as you know I'm so cool." Bobby said with a grin, and the air around his hand went white and swirled in a tiny icy tornado. Drake's ability was thermodynamic, he could draw out the heat from material, or the air itself, creating ice and manipulating it into specific forms and shapes. Like each student here, including her, Bobby was still learning what he could do with his gifts.

Kent on the other hand was an enigma, he was very strong – when called upon to move a heavy object he did so without complaint or any sign of effort. The scuttlebutt was that he was really very tough too. Just how tough wasn't clear, but the Professor showed no concern about his hobby; riding a motorcycle very quickly around the Estate's several miles of private roads – and if the gossip was to believed further afield too, that would be of course breaking both the School rules, and the law.

He wasn't a regular team player. The excuse was that Kent had been through the exercises the other students used to hone their various abilities. While the other long-time boarder, Hank McCoy assisted Xavier and Darkholme, with the new intake, Kent wasn't to be seen during these lessons.

The implication was that Kent was in control of himself in ways they weren't. Even Hank admitted his condition was constantly evolving, that he was having to adjust to that. It was something Jean sensed troubled the young scientist. Of all of them she sensed that Hank was the least comfortable with his special condition, even though he'd never admit to that.

Some mutations were relatively stable. Scott for example had grown more powerful, but the nature of his mutation was constant, the optic blasts were what they were - red energy acting as force. Other's like Hank were ongoing, constantly evolving. Other mutant abilities were stable for periods of time, before changing explosively. That was her experience. Her telekinetic ability had gone from being able to move a pencil, to being able to move several hundred pounds overnight. The Professor had helped her telepathically, so she could control her vastly increased ability. She understood Hank's fear about the future, she felt it too. What if she experienced another relative power up? How powerful could she become – and what would that mean?

Scott interrupted her thoughts. He took her arm with gentle, albeit unwanted concern. "He isn't asking you to go ride his motorcycle – is he?" Summers asked looking at Kent as he spoke.

Kent had acquired the Harley – his hobby vehicle by surreptitious means. Word was he had built ground up from salvaged parts. Whatever the truth it was now garaged alongside Xavier's collection of exotic and expensive vehicles, and it shone as brightly as any of them.

"What if I was?" Kent asked stepping away from the wall.

"Bobby has a point." Scott replied. "This Rebel with a Clue thing you have going on, I don't know who you think it impresses, because take if from me it doesn't."

Kent reached into his pocket.

Scott tensed.

Kent pulled out a set of keys, tossing them to Summers without really looking at him. Instead Kent's azure eyes were fixed on hers. "Take her out yourself." Kent said. "I can tell you really want too."

As he spoke Scott caught the keys – more out of instinct than desire. He looked at them in his hand, and a pale read glow appeared behind his dark glasses.

Jean sighed. These strutting cocks were setting themselves up for a fight in the school yard, and worse she felt conflicted about the idea. She found herself wondering just how strong and tough Kent really was. If anyone could test that strength it was Scott.

"Which 'her' are you speaking about." Jean asked Kent. "Me or your motorcycle?"

Kent hadn't broken eye contact and it felt like he was looking right through her. Jean was embarrassed, and then aware she was blushing, she turned away, breaking from his stare, letting her hair fall across her face like a veil.

"I'll let Scott work that one out." Kent replied.

"What does that mean." Summers demanded.

"It means one of us has manners." Kent replied. "I was raised to be generous, to give a little, to give a guy a break."

Summers hand tightened around the keys. "There are rules." He stated. Repeating a mantra of his late father. "Ways things should be done. Especially here. You act like you are different from us, like those rules don't apply to you."

"I am different." Kent answered, turning his back, he made to leave.

A few steps later Summers called out after Kent. "What if I break it." Scott asked, his tone defiant and taunting.

"The bike I can fix." Kent replied, looking around, he added after a pregnant pause. "But if you break Jean, then I'll break you."

Scott grimaced, angry, and leant forward his fingers rose to his glasses, but Kent wasn't looking; he walked away.

"No, Scott." Jean said, taking hold of his arm. "Remember – like you said, the Professor's rules matter."

"Don't you turn your back on me?" Scott shouted out, but Kent Logan didn't look back a second time, he kept walking across the wide paved space and out of the gate and into the Estate's expansive gardens beyond.


	24. Chapter 24

"What are you doing here – following me."

The air was full of testosterone, his, and oestrogen, her. Kent was keenly aware of these things especially at this point in his life. He smelled Scott Summers on her clothes.

"I don't know." Jean said. Looking confused, Kent read her micro expressions, there was something unspoken going on in her own subconscious. It shocked him, a eureka moment, a cascade of previously unconnected thoughts, memories and emotions fell into place, a compelling narrative – a story, one he could imagine splashed across the front page of a Newspaper.

Had this been why he'd been avoiding the new intake? To wrapped up in his sense of difference had Kent been blind to the similarities?

What was the Professor's purpose behind his method? What was he doing, what had he done?

Feeling confused was something he loathed, not having a sense of who he was and where he was betrayed the memory of Uncle James. He had to exist in the present, conscious of the now.

He frowned angry. Kent wasn't sure how Jean Grey had found him. He hadn't been trying to be seen – and for Kent Logan to be seen, he had to want it.

Kent found he could disappear at will, it wasn't sorcery, he didn't whisper a mystical word and become invisible, but it was a kind of magic, at least related to the stage kind. Building on the skills he had learned with Uncle 'Jimmy' Logan as they had crossed the North American Continent, Kent had honed his already incredible super senses; he listened, watched, and waited. He had long ago come to understand, even way back as Reilly Kent, that he not only moved more quickly than other people but he thought more quickly too. It wasn't just his native speed that made him so different, but the range of information his senses processed at that speed.

What he perceived was above and beyond human normal. He saw things other people couldn't – the invisible spectrum wasn't, it was visible to him, and recently he had begun to see the background hum of modern communications – radio waves. While the world around him moved slowly, he was assimilating all these extra physical sensory inputs at a speed congruent with his evolving physiology. Human thought processes occurred over seconds, humans experienced their sensory world second by second. His moments were measured in milliseconds; it allowed him to act in a controlled way at ever increasing speeds, while processing all the data his super-senses accumulated, millisecond by millisecond. With practise he was getting better at it too.

When the world around you is made of paper and cardboard it helps that everything moves at a snail's pace, and slipping between the cracks of human perception had become second nature to Kent. A little step to the left, a shift in position, take advantage of the blind-spot, find the natural cover afforded by the landscape, the vegetation, the hustle and bustle of the urban jungle, wherever and whenever, Kent could disappear. It was a trick, a magician's sleight of hand, and it usually worked.

Not today, not in the Mansion's grounds, which usually made the business of being alone easy, with their many shaded paths and concealed gardens, hidden corners designed to surprise; but Jean Grey had found him.

Kent didn't say it. It wasn't his place; Grey was more than a telekinetic.

"What is it with you?" She asked. "I know Hank's story, and C.W.'s, I've even talked to Miss Darkholme, about how she got here. I know the Professor chose his mother's maiden name over his fathers..." Jean Grey stopped talking. Her brow narrowed as she focused her thoughts. "That's it isn't it. I can tell. I can see it in your face. It's Luthor Corp, the Professor's father; it's all connected somehow."

"Do you think my story is any happier than any of yours?" Kent asked.

"You can't have destroyed your school like Scott?" Jean said. Kent had heard how summers optic blasts had nearly levelled his home-town High when his powers had kicked in.

"Did your parents disown you like Bobby's?" Jean persisted.

"My dad was murdered, and I can't see my mom because if I were to contact her then the Professor's Father would be able to locate me."

"And that would be bad because?"

"He'd stop at nothing to get hold of me."

"Nothing?" Jean asked, but filling in the blanks any way she said. "You mean he'd hurt people around you to get to you."

"Just like he did to my dad" Kent answered.

"Okay that's grim." Jean tossed her auburn hair backwards into the light; it shone red, each fibre glowing like a fiery string vibrating in the brilliance. Behind her the sun was filtered through the tree canopy, diffusing across the ornamental flowering shrubs below them, plants that lined the winding path. In close chloroplasts were excited by the vital energy, insects teemed in incredible numbers in each square foot of ground space. Life happened.

"Life happens. People die." Kent said.

"That's it?" Jean asked. "Don't you want to make the world a better place?"

Kent was lost for words, a long time and thoughts didn't form, it was like he was walking along following a path of thought, and then a stumble, a misstep, a miss-thought, he was trying to regain his balance, but it wasn't happening."

"Of course" He said.

Jonathan Kent had said as much. "When the time is right son you must use your incredible strength to help humanity."

Jean was still talking, seconds were passing. "That's why the Professor founded our school, if we can show the rest of the world the good we can do..."

"They'll accept us?" Kent asked, and before he could stop himself, he found the words tripping off his tongue, it was a slow motion car wreck of conversation already, and he'd only made it worse. "But what about the monsters Jean?" He asked. He spoke slowly, he always did, that's how he'd learned to talk, and to take time over the words, second by second so he'd be understood, so he'd fit in, so he'd be one of them. With so much time he should have stopped himself, taken control.

"Monsters?" Grey looked shocked. "Who are you calling a monster?" Her eyes widened in misplaced anger, blood pressure raised, pulse quickened skin flushed. "Me, Bobby, Angel, Hank?" She jabbed him, it hurt her finger to do so, she winced with the pain. "You!" She shouted deflecting her pain, and vocalising her anger. "Are you a monster Kent?"

Kent felt the pain wash through is head as if a damn had burst. He saw James Logan's bone claws bursting from his fists, followed by images of mud coloured monsters clothed in white born horns pounding, hurting, shaking the very world. Images that threatened to overwhelm him. His eyes both glowed red misted white as tears were turned to steam by localised heat. With one hand he covered his alien face and extended his other slowly, so slowly – or so he imagined. He didn't touch Jean, he didn't have to, the concussive blast of his hand moving through the air at super human speed created a wind strong enough to knock the young woman off her feet and propel Grey into the bushes across the other side of the path. At the same time Kent kicked down hard, the ground shook, the compacted gravel beneath his boots exploded outwards, raining down like hail on the garden shrubs and trees. In that second leaves were torn away along with smaller branches. Kent disappeared upwards in a gravity defying leap, all around the grounds the foliage vibrated with the sound of his agonised cry.

"What happened Professor?" Jean asked as she awoke. Looking around she saw the concerned faces of her fellow students. She lay in the mansions day room which had been arranged in a more homely fashion that the formal reception rooms, but like them it ran off the main hall which was central space in the main voice which extended into the roof space. She had no memory of her journey from the gardens to here, but the most direct route would have been through the main door and entrance hall.

"Where is Kent?" She asked.

"We don't know." Scott answered without any regret in his voice. Jean saw he was glad Kent was gone, angry that anyone would think otherwise.

'_Jean,' _Xavier spoke directly into her mind. _'Please, don't be alarmed, there is something I must tell you, things I must explain. Please would you mind resting your eyes for a moment, while we share our thoughts, so I can decipher what happened to you.'_

Jean understood the Professor's request because it was more than words given shape in her mind, they were like an icing on cake of an idea, the concept was richer, deeper and more layered. In simple terms she was to play possum, to act out a role while they spoke without speaking.

_'Professor?' _She spoke into the self-imposed darkness, taking a chance, making an informed guess.

_'I can hear you Jean' _Colours began swirl behind her closed eye-lids.

_'Since when have I been telepathic?' _Colours that began to take shape and form.

_'You were always telepathic.' _Xavier responded, and Jean was seeing herself moving across the landscape of her own memories hand in hand with the professor in what was a waking dream. It was like watching a television set, the images were inserted into the normal background of her the real world but displaying something else. Watching her conversation with Kent, and the moment he disappeared.

_'It was necessary to divert your energies into telekinesis to prevent you from suffering a mental overload.'_

Jean realised what Xavier meant. He had suppressed her telepathic gift – saying it was for her own good.

She felt both puzzled and indignant.

_'Where are we?' _Jean asked pushing through the emotional clouds.

_'We're inside your head, your memories.' _The Professor answered as they came to rest on top of a great castle like tower. _'This is your mind-scape. Your memories laid out as terrain.'_

_'You're doing this?'_

_'I am influencing your imagination.'_

_'So my memories are mapped out, like a landscape?'_

_'It is a common archetype, one I use rather than create.'_

_'And this tower?'_

_'Represents your consciousness, your sense of self. Another Archetype.'_

_'A safe place, but from what Professor. Why would I need this.' _She realised how tall the construct was, how far away the distant hills and valleys seemed, how small it all was.

_'Yes Jean, there are memories that could hurt you.'_

As if prompted by this statement, Jean's attention fixed on a dark forest on the distant horizon, it seemed to change shape spilling over the fields, getting closer, bigger, more oppressive, growing changing like time speeded up the trees seeding, sprouting, spreading, the dark forest expanding.

_'Jean! Come back'_

Jean skipped onwards down a familiar path, lost into a waking dream. She carried a basket, and wore a red hooded cloak borrowed from a fairy-tale; she was a little girl again. Jean felt herself drawn into the trees, and into the shadows.

She was with Kent as they looked at other in the shaded woodland path of the Mansions Grounds, and he was smiling in a wolfish way, she was talking, telling him things about herself, about the time in the living room at home with her Parents, showing them how she could levitate a pencil, how she could make the pencil dance in the air with the power of her mind. Then in the trees behind Kent, behind her he saw the dark shadows move with a life of their own, Kent growled something, Kent bared his teeth. She saw her parent's faces, she saw their fear, their loathing of what she was."

_'Jean'_

"Jean" Raven Darkholme said, her hand brushing her hair, tender, concerned. "Are you okay?"

Jean pulled herself upright; she saw that her Classmates had left the day-room. She knew Hank had taken them away; she had memories of both her outward and inward experience. Jean realised she hadn't been faking sleep, she had been hypnotised by Xavier into some kind of heightened unconsciousness.

Jean knew who to blame, and at once she stared at the Professor she said.

"I understand now – what you did to me."

"Jean, what do you mean?" Raven asked, her hair was auburn right now, mirroring Jeans natural colour exactly, a message of solidarity.

"You should take this slowly." Darkholme added, taking her hand, sitting next to her.

Grey took to her feet. "I'm fine." She said releasing herself from Raven's touch and at the same time firmly placing her feet on the polished wooden floor. To her left a tea cup rattled in its saucer on the side table. Her telekinesis solidified her stance, and rippled of force bled from her. She had practised this, standing still and firm.

Xavier would understand, even if Raven didn't. The time had come to make a stand.

"I think I understand what Kent was talking about, about the monsters." Jean explained. "They're inside of us – all of us, human and mutant alike. They are dark thoughts, dark emotions, anger, hate, all those things, inside our minds they have shape and form. If we let them, we can become them. Become someone like your father."

"Monsters from the Id" The Professor nodded. "It's dangerous enough when human beings embrace their dark desires, re-imagine their dark memories as darker still, feed them and become them; but for those with special abilities the dangers are greater still. Some of us can make those monsters real."

"What about Kent?" Grey asked. "You suppressed dark memories for him, just as you did for me." She turned to Raven Darkhome. "You see Miss, my parent's thoughts – I read their minds when I told them what I was, when I came out as a Mutant – and they didn't like it, they didn't like me."

"I know Jean." Raven replied. "They were afraid of you; I know I've been there."

"But I didn't just guess at their reaction." Jean replied.

"We understand." Xavier stated. "Your experience of their rejection, you saw it telepathically – every thought and emotion was laid bare for you. Nothing was hidden."

"I... I... hurt them." Jean gasped.

"Jean they're okay now." Raven told her. "The Professor fixed your parents minds. You must realise none of this is your fault, your anguish at their rejection; well it created a kind of psychic backlash. You had no idea that such a thing could happen, never mind how to control your power."

"I didn't remember." Jean shook her head.

"Because you didn't want too" Xavier responded. "There are still mental blocks in place Jean. Some are yours. Some are mine." He lent forward in his chair. "I promise you Jean, in time you will grow to understand and accept both your memories – and your telepathic abilities."

"With our help" Raven added. "It's why the school is here."

Jean frowned. "This is a big deal." She shook her head, feeling anger and confusion. "Professor you're inside my head, arranging my memories, playing with my powers – and with Kent?

"Did you do this to him too?" Jean asked, adding. "What about the rest of us, Hank? C.W? Bobby? Scott?"

Xavier sighed he placed his hand to his temple and stroked his brow.

He seemed to think for a moment, and then he committed to a reply.

"With Kent - Yes and no, the truth is Jean I repaired a mental barrier that was already in place, one that had been created to protect him. The barrier was not my doing. Not in his case."

"If not by you – who then"

"Kent's father"

"The man who was murdered?"

"No. It was Kent's natural, not adoptive father." The Professor answered. "Although he too died"

"Jean." Raven interrupted casting a glance in the direction of Xavier that looked like a warning, perhaps even a rebuke.

Jean read it to mean Darkholme thought Xavier was sharing too much information.

"You're a smart kid, but you are still a child." Raven told her. "You can frown at us all you like, and act offended because someone has been poking in your head. Well hell yeah, that's fair enough, but the thing is the Professor acted in your best interest, and Kent's too."

"Says you" Grey snapped back.

"He has a complicated past, to say the least." Raven replied her voice calm. Jean stepped back from her anger; remembering her parents, the possible consequences, and listened.

"Like you – and me, in time Kent will learn how to deal with all that has happened to him, and those he loved, but for now – this is why this schools exist, to help people like us."

"Mutants"

"Yes Mutants." Raven agreed. "Help us deal with being different. The Professor and I learned the hard way, and we're just trying to pass on that experience, the things we learned, so that all of you can have a better experience, a better life."

"I get it Miss Darkholme." Jean answered. "But messing around in my head, it's like messing with my room without asking, and I thought mom reading my diary was an invasion of my privacy."

_'I asked your permission Jean.' _The Professor told her. She remembered coming to the School now, how empty she felt, shut down, almost comatose herself, she felt the guilt gnawing at her, the image of her parents fallen over in their chairs, saliva dripping from gaping mouths, empty shark eyes staring into nothingness." _'You begged me to do this.' _The Professor explained.

Tears flowed from her eyes as Jean remembered the sense of relief when Xavier had lifted her grief and welcomed her into the school.

For a long moment no one said anything at all. Jean collected her thoughts. "Okay I understand that now." She admitted, forcing back the tears. "But what happened to Kent – where did he go?" Jean asked.

Raven looked at Xavier. Jean guessed an unspoken exchange was going on. She waited, for the Professor to answer.

"I believe, based on what you told me, that there has been a breach in the mental barrier placed in his consciousness by his biological parents."

"The one that was fractured when his adoptive father was murdered?" Jean asked.

The Professor nodded. "I repaired this when Kent first came to the school seeking a solution for his nightmares, over several months of work I managed to stem that breach, the psychic repair I made must have..." Xavier paused as he picked his words,.. "failed"

"But..." Jean almost said how did that happen, yet as she articulated the question a realisation came to her consciousness, whelming up from her subconscious mind.

She looked at her teachers.

"It was me, wasn't it?" Jean asked.

Raven sighed reluctant to agree.

Xavier said. "Yes, but Jean it was of course not in any way your fault.

"If anything it was mine, for not anticipating this, but your latent telepathic powers were triggered by your concern for his wellbeing, and probably a good deal of adolescent curiosity and err other things, which in turn sparked a reaction in him." Xavier replied.

"Oh God" Jean gasped. Falling back down onto the couch "I screwed it all up." She hugged herself. "I just wanted us to be friends, I mean all of us, Scott, Kent, everybody."

Raven sat down beside her, and placed an arm around her. Their Auburn hair met in tussle of emotions.

"We'll fix this." Raven replied. "It's what we do?"

"How?" Jean asked. Turning to Xavier "What if your father learns where he is and gets to Kent first?"

"It's too soon." Xavier said his eyes looked out of focus, as if his mind was elsewhere. "Much sooner than I hoped" He added. His face wrinkled with a frown of determination. "But necessity is the mother of invention." The Professor stated, then both thinking telepathically and speaking the words as the Professor placed his fingers to his temple Xavier said.

"My X-Men to me"


	25. Chapter 25

Hera stroked the arm her gilded throne. It reminded of how vanity could entrap even the Queen of Olympus. For Hepheastus, her hated crippled godling child, had forged it to be a prison. Release had been only been won at a high price, the hand of Aphrodite in marriage to the Smith. Hera had not forgotten. Only yesterday or so it seemed to her, Hera had enjoyed the talk of revenge against the mortals hubris, almost as much as her child Ares, oh, how he enjoyed the idea of first-hand action. The god of war had grown bored, he had enjoyed vicariously so much bloodshed in recent times, but hands on mayhem was something he yearned for. Ares was a brute, yet very much a force of humanity, but never humane, and useful. Ares was as beautiful as Hepheastus was ugly, as perfectly formed as Hepheastus was twisted. He had taken Aphrodite from the god of Smiths, and with it broken his heart.

Hera had learned patience held fast to the golden throne, its prisoner. Even now when Hera could come and go as she pleased, the god-smith's magic curse long broken, she chose to reflect on her position seated here. Alone in the throne room of Olympus it's Queen considered her complicated relationship with her brother and husband Zeus. Their marriage was not a love match, but a union of necessity. Where now, the human race was a multitude, grown to numbers in the thousands of millions, then, long ago, the gods had been one family, just a handful of individuals living in an unearthly realm full of monsters, giants and beasts. Chief among them had been their own father. Cronus devoured his own children, in reality not eating them as the simple human minds had imagined, gods were not creatures of flesh and blood, although that form was easily adopted, they were not destroyed if such a body perished. The gods' life-force was an energy that could manifest in many forms. Cronus ate his offspring by absorbing their energy, their life-force into his, increasing his own power exponentially. Zeus had been spared this fate, because his mother Rhea had at last managed to deceive her husband, and later as an adult Zeus had struck Cronus open. Thus Zeus released his elder siblings. Each emerged into their adult forms after so long entrapped, no longer slaves in Cronus's collective body. Later her husband emerged victorious in the battle with the primal forces the ancients called the Titans, leading his brothers Posideon, and Hades, dividing emergent world of men between themselves, with him as King. Hera had joined with Zeus to birth Ares, Enyo, Hebe, Eileithyia, Hephaestus and Eris. It was a matter of expedience.

"Necessity is the mother of invention or so say my little ones below." Hera whispered to herself. As Matriarch of Olympus she guarded her power closely. She had to be inventive. There was no abundance of Ichor in this modern age, it was a dwindling resource. Hera could no permit her reputation to wane among the handful of mystics and devotees who still paid lip service to the old ways. Neither could she appear weak to her own kind, or else some other might seize her position and usurp her. Anything was possible, especially if the action promised to increase the flow of Ichor, and bring with it that precious gift – novelty.

Only it wasn't yesterday that a man had stolen the remains of the Aegis, and used them for his own purposes, many seasons had already passed in the earthly realm and Zeus had not acted. His demonstration of ire had been godly, but that wrath hadn't translated into anything of substance in the material world. It irked Hera because her position was tied to his. Sometimes she considered untying the Gordian knot that bound them. Today was no different.

Today she had a visitor.

"Who brings you to Olympus daughter of Hectate?"

"Cousin I would treat with you."

The woman wore green and gold, she had gone to great lengths to create the right impression, and it deserved a moment of the Queen's time, if only for the fact it was novel.

"Circe, how can an Enchantress from the Earthly realms come to Throne of Olympus?" Hera laughed warmly, like a mother amused by an uppity child.

"I sponsor her Mother." Ares told her. Dripping blood the war-god left ruddy foot prints on the white marble floor, as Ares strolled from out of the concealing shadows. He wore modern human dress; a dark suit was immaculately tailored, his face vibrant, flush with power, in his hand an oversized wine glass, the kind which happily accommodates a bottle and more, the liquid was red, but this wasn't the blood of the grape, but a more vital kind.

"Whatever amuses you my darling. Your father always thought so much of Hectate, I think he would happily overlook a dalliance with such a daughter of the earthly realms. She is pretty, but she is no Aphrodite."

Circe's face strained with wrath, but here she bit her tongue, she knew better than that. "Your Grace is most generous. My Mother birthed me into the Earth, but she did not leave me powerless."

"Ah yes, the magic of your world, it is far more than humans can imagine, but then again they imagine very little these days."

"Mother Circe told me something of interest, something that affects you and me."

"What on Earth could trouble Olympus in these later days of disbelief?" Hera laughed.

"Zeus has fathered a child."

Hera laughed. "I didn't think the old goat had it in him." She laughed some more, but the sounds was hollow. "Another bastard makes no difference." Hera waved her hand to dismiss them. "There have been plenty enough, each one born weaker than the one before." Hera sniffed and settled back into the golden chair. "What can we expect as our influence wanes so does our strength."

She looked down at Ares. "And as plentiful as spilled blood has become it is not Ichor."

The room grew darker, and the shadows closed in as if threatening, fire in the torches flickered as if driven by wind.

"Please my Queen, there is still danger; should a child of Zeus rise and strike, as Zeus did to Cronus, and Cronus to his father Uranus." Circe shouted into the encroaching darkness.

"Is this why you come here cousin?" The Queen of the gods spat fire at Circe. "To sneer at me – as a gossip monger?" Flames washed over the Enchantress, but it was Ares who deflected his mother's wrath.

He sipped from his bloody flask. Hera watched as the red stained his lips, it was not Ichor, but the war-god was sustained by constant consumption with no fear the well of suffering would run dry. Hera believed she saw the future.

"Mother the bastard child is an Amazon." The war-god told the Queen stretching out his hand beckoning Circe forward. The Witch swallowed, found voice and said. "Your Grace the child is a daughter of the chief Amazon, Queen Hippolyta."

Hera growled, her face became bestial and her voice monstrous.

"How can he do this to me?" She spat. In that moment she saw herself replaced, unseated.

Circe spoke into the maelstrom. "Themyscira is a charmed Isle, full of godly power, its people are immortals living in a paradise created by the goddesses. The Sorority of Olympus, gave the Amazons the tools to forge themselves into demi-gods, immortals so they can guard the street to the underworld; the Doom Gate."

Hera stood from her chair, her fists clenched.

Ares said. "Mother one born of Zeus in this special realm could be great. Herakles threat has past, but even he was born to a mortal woman."

Circe nodded. "This child was born by a woman who has lived for three thousand years, steeped in the blessing of the old magic wrought when Olympus overflowed with Ichor and you Mother were at your mightiest. It is a She-viper that will strike at you and yours."

"And these Amazons dare honour my name." Hera growled.

"Wait mother." Ares cautioned.

"You..." Hera gasped in her anger, her shape changing as she channelled power from the Ichor Well below. "...of all of us,.. ask me to wait; you think the usurper would suffer you to live?" Hera growled and roared. "We will be avenged!"

"Yet the Amazon's are a well source, precious to Olympus." Ares told her.

"That is not enough." Hera replied. Her eyes glowed red, thunderbolts formed in her hands, legacy of her shared authority with Zeus.

"They don't know the truth." Her son told her. "The Amazon's all believe you gave a girl child to Queen, a golem made from the primal clay."

"Then it is all Hippolyta." Hera whispered.

"Yes your Grace," Circe agreed. "She has conspired to keep the truth secret from you, from all of us, her own people, even her own daughter."

"You have the ear of my lusty son, and his passions are not the loving kind." Hera noted as her enraged form coalesced into her classical appearance once more. "I see plans within plans, yet I shall not wait Ares. No my child I am not my husband drunk with time and liquor. Your mother will begin now, and those who see and understand. They will know that I have acted.

"You shall have the Amazons. Let Athena and the others complain, the insult is too great. These warrior women are rightly the vassals of the god of war.

"But most of all I will punish this Queen and her daughter. I will see them both suffer for a long, long time, and their pain will make the agonies of Prometheus seem gentle by comparison.

"But I shall spare Themyscira, for you Ares, and for the sake of the Ichor."

"Hello mother."

"Hermes."

The Messenger god saw his mother Maia. She shone in the darkness. This was her seat in the heavens, a great nuclear furnace in the Pleiades Constellation. There were two realities conjoined by invisible chains; first the real world where natural physics observed a star, and called it by her name, and another invisible dimension beyond the reach of human science. This was a god made realm, a string on the celestial lyre vibrating at different frequency occupying the same position in relative space, but not at the same time and place.

Hermes was a traveller, the god of transitions and boundaries, his power to move freely between worlds – between realities meant the trickster god of thieves and guide to souls, could cross the boundary between the realm of Olympus which extended beyond the Mountain including over and underworld dimensions, and to the otherwise insurmountable Catasterismi; the placing among the stars, where Zeus located gods and demi-gods in celestial safe houses, secure from the internecine bloody squabbles that characterised Olympian family politics.

For his mother Maia it secured her from Hera's wrath, for Hermes was fathered by Hera's brother-husband Zeus. Moreover his mother craved isolation, and this created realm resembled in every way the cave where she had dwelt happily in the mount, Cyllene in Arcadia, in what is now Southern Greece. Hermes birth place. Maia who craved solitude was happy to make an exception for her son.

"Hera moves against your sister and mine. She who emerged first from the rebirth of your people, and her child, the one you called Queen."

"And the other Amazon's?" Maia asked.

"They are safe – for now."

"Are you certain my son?"

"I am, in as much one can trust any of us. I stood and listened to Hera treat with her Son and his Witch Circe of Aeaea. Even Ares understands the value of Themyscira's tribute."

"Hera understands only her own desires; she places value on them and nothing else." Maia replied.

Hermes did not disagree, but he recognised that his mother was not unbiased in this matter.

"What does Hera intend?" His mother asked.

"She means to strike out, and quickly, to kill Hippolyta and her child. Her scorpions are but moments from emerging from their dust mote eggs in the Palace of Themyscira."

"Even Orion the Hunter succumbed to their sting." Maia noted. "Hera will not permit a threat to Olympian supremacy to live. A child, even one as strong as Diana of Themyscira would be dead in minutes and with it all our hopes."

"Agonising minutes" Hermes noted. "We must save our champion Mother."

Maia growled like a she cat. "I did not borrow your winged sandals; leave the sanctuary of this starry cave to act as midwife to my sister Hippolyta, to bring her babe Diana into the world to see them killed by Hera."

Hermes remembered, he had been trapped in this cave until his mother returned. By wearing the mystical Talaria, the signature shoes that enabled him to cross the inter-dimensional boundaries his mother had been able to do the impossible, leave her celestial realm, and cross over to Island of Themyscira. The winged sandals were not strictly speaking an article of clothing, any more than he or any Olympian possessed a material body to wear them rather the Talaria were, just as was Hermes outward human appearance, an idea given form.

His mother looked to him. "What does your father say?"

"He has withdrawn; he keeps company with Apollo, Hepheastus, and Posideon."

"And the wine-cup?" Maia suggested, saying. "Yet you and Athena's Sorority have his blessing?"

"The Ichor flows to Hepheastus forge, and the work is being done."

"But it isn't finished."

"No." Hermes shook his head. "Hepheastus says it is difficult in this Iron Age of Men to forge anything with the old magic's greater power, and he speaks the truth, I am still working myself on stitching my own life force into new Talaria." Hermes gestured to the winged sandals he wore on his feet. "And difficult means it takes many seasons to complete."

"Then what choice do we have, time is against us. You must snatch them away from Hera's reach my son - take them outside the Olympian commonwealth."

"I cannot bring them here?" Hermes replied. "Once they cross over into the Catasterismi, they cannot leave, one perhaps could, if I gave up my shoes, and what then?"

"Yes I know the new Talaria are not ready." His mother replied.

Hermes paused for thought. "And my part in our conspiracy would be exposed. All would be lost."

"There is another place, one that can be reached from Themyscira. One that is outside the Olympian realms" His mother suggested.

"But Hera can reach the Mortal world." Hermes considered the idea.

"True my son, but her powers are not as great as they were when I was saved from her wrath, plucked from Mount Cyllene by your father. The world is larger and more populous; it will be far easier to hide among mortals."

Hermes smiled. "And where Hera can reach so can I; so can Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, and the sisters Hestia and Demeter." His smile left him. "But so can the most powerful of us, Ares."

"Nothing in life is ever certain."

Hermes nodded. "Time is my friend. I shall intervene."


	26. Chapter 26

"You've got mail." The Computer pinged, attracting the attention of a tall gaunt faced man. Blond haired, cut in a business like short back and sides, Doctor Donald Blake turned from the window overlooking Manhattan to his desk that carried an inscribed inverted v shaped aluminium name plaque bearing his name, his computer, and tidied pile of papers, topped with an antique ink pen. Blake lent on his gnarled walking cane, twisted in nature, the ash bough was stout enough to bear his weight, but delicate enough to be described as a stick. Even with the scant few steps to his chair Blake made use of it, his stiff right leg's weakness self-evident.

A mouse click later Blake paused deep in thought, keys tapped a short answer, Chess move; 'enter' sent the message electronically to the named recipient Doctor Steven Strange. Picking up a Tennis ball he lapsed back into thought.

A voice interrupted however. "Do you have time?..."

Blake looked up from his Desk. "Doctor Foster..." A pretty fair brunette lent her head through the cracked open door to his office; she gave every sign of being stressed by her day.

"Time?" He asked

"...to see a new patient, a family actually?"

"Jane I..."

"Please." She asked him, her voice heavy with frustration. "I know you hate inductions, but I'm swamped, with Wilson being called away on an emergency." She pushed the door open further. "Besides given all these leaves of absence you've taken in the last few months, it's the least you could do." She smiled adding. "And for some reason they've just made a point of asking if they could see you especially."

Blake laughed and shook his head denying her request. He then said. "Wilson could have asked me to help him out you know."

"He's still mad at you for that last stunt you pulled."

Blake nodded and aimed the tennis ball at the far wall; it hit loudly and bounced returning to him more or less directly. Don caught it and pursed his lips. "Everybody lies."

Jane pushed the door open. "Dating doesn't work like that. So she didn't tell him the whole truth, who tells the whole truth about themselves from the get go – not you Blake, we both know that."

He knew what Jane meant, there was an unspoken romantic tension between them, something that neither Doctor seemed able to broach.

He guessed they were both broken.

From the beginning, his first waking memory as an adult Blake had known something important was missing from his life, and this mental void coupled with his disability. It had driven Blake into melancholy many times, but despite this dark mental cloud, and physical handicap Blake had worked his way through college, then medical school. Where he had met James Wilson, together they had gone on to build a successful Medical Practise targeting the expensive and difficult to cure cases, charging high so they could help as many who couldn't pay as they can. Wilson called it his Robin Hood formula. Moving up on the back of their success to these offices on Manhattan Island, which given his less than privileged beginning as an amnesiac John Doe found sprawled in an alleyway in Hell's Kitchen was an achievement.

"Jane I..."

She waved her hand between them cutting him off. "I'll send them up directly." Foster said as she walked over, dropping a folder on Blake's desk, ignoring his earlier refusal. "And at least glance at their notes in the next couple of minutes before they arrive." Jane added as she left.

Blake sighed. Foster wasn't going to take no for an answer. He nodded and watched her walk out, there was no question Jane was a good looking woman; a professional, smart and accomplished. Wilson had persuaded Foster to join their practice when he spotted her career as a reconstructive surgeon moving into high gear. The tension between Foster and Blake had been evident from day one. She was beautiful, graceful, with a winning personality, a bedside manner that rivalled Wilson's own homespun charm, while he was a grumpy cripple in constant pain from his leg, angry at a cruel world, and his own weaknesses, frustrated with the constant demands of his patients. He'd been too self-absorbed, blind to the fact that Foster was attracted to him, then everything had changed and Blake realised it was too late to do anything about that.

Before that incident in Norway had changed him in ways neither Jane Foster nor James Wilson could hope to understand, Blake's approach to life had been obsessive, to the detriment of everything else. It was a miracle Wilson was patient enough to be his partner and his friend, in truth his only friend, it seemed impossible that Jane had seen through his ill-tempered exterior and seen instead the good he worked to do. Before Norway the only thing that mattered to Blake was the challenge – the journey into mystery that was diagnosis, and the sense of victory that he felt when his Patients condition was vanquished. It almost made he forget the pain from his leg.

He looked over the files Foster had left him. It didn't take him long, and soon he was feeling pissed.

"Ms Prince." Blake said as he rose to feet, with the aid of his stick, he moved effectively if not gracefully from his chair, to extend his hand to the striking woman who had been directed to his office by their receptionist. She took it.

Was this Jane's idea of a joke, a test? Blake didn't know.

"Doctor, please call me Lyta." She answered looking him in the eye, unusually tall for a woman, a full head taller than Jane Foster.

Dark Blonde hair tumbled across her shoulders, her skin was bronzed but not lined, not sun kissed, but almost luminescent and flawless.

"My friends call me Blake." He stated. "This must be Diana."

Lyta Prince's daughter was fourteen years old according to her file. Her height and muscle tone meant she could easily be mistaken for a much older teenager, the kind who would have no problem been served in a bar in London, Paris or Rome. It didn't seem possible but with her blue black hair and vibrant sky blue eyes the younger woman threatened to be more beautiful than her mother.

"Welcome to Manhattan." Blake said. Gesturing to the chairs arranged to the right side of his desk, and sat in his own office captains' style swivel chair, which he turned around to face them. "From your file you are both in ridiculously good health." He smiled the best smile he could muster, while grabbing hold of his painful leg. "So what brings you to us?" He shrugged. "Because I have no idea what I can do for you."

Lyta smiled, her demeanour reminded him of another time and place, and a half remembered memory of a regal and commanding woman. Since his Norwegian vacation, Blake's long standing amnesia had begun to loosen its grip. What he remembered now only exacerbated however his sense of not belonging.

The stunning blonde woman spoke to him. "Doctor Blake can't do anything." She said. Pausing she extended her hand saying. "But the Mighty Thor of the Asgard, favoured son of the Allfather of the Aesir can."

Across the city in Forest Hills, Queens, a small boy finds his work interrupted.

"You shouldn't do that."

"Huh"

"Peter Parker. You shouldn't do that."

Peter looks up, his magnifying glass in hand, his focus shifts from the yard and upwards, he sees a girl, she tells him she's just moved into the house next door and they're to be the same class. She tells him at much. "I'll see you every day when school starts. I'm Mary Jane Watson. Your mom said you'd be here, she told me your name."

"She's not my mom. She's my Aunt Martha. My mother's dead."

Mary Jane Watson frowned, a smattering of freckles dashed across her nose, and her red hair shone in the afternoon sun. "I'm sorry." She said for the first time uncertain of herself. "My dad gets angry sometimes." She added for it seemed no real reason Peter could fathom.

"My dad's dead too, that's why I live with my Uncle Ben and Aunt Martha."

"Your Aunt seems nice."

Peter nodded still in a crouch with his magnifying glass in hand. "She is."

"You shouldn't do that." Mary Jane said for the third time.

Peter's confusion didn't lift. "Do what?" He asked puzzled.

"Use a magnifying glass to kill ants. It's cruel."

"I'm not." Peter replied indignantly. "I'm studying them. Any way they're _not_ ants, they're baby arachnids." He said arachnids slowly as if mentally spelling the word. Mary Jane repeated it, but it came out garbled, more like "iran-na-kids?"

"Spiders! They have eight legs, ants are insects. Insects have six legs. That's two less."

"I know that." Mary Jane said. "I mean that six is two less than eight, are you seven years old too?"

"Ahuh." Peter answered looking at the spiders through his magnifying glass.

An adult voice interrupted them. "Do you two want to share some milk and cookies?"

Peter stood up, at this point in life Mary Jane Watson was a mite taller than he, testosterone would fix that in time, but right now it was simply two kids playing in the back yard of house in Queens. Both came running.

Martha Parker watched them coming. She smiled at their enthusiasm.

Turning to the gentlemen in her Kitchen

"Could I get you something Detective Jones?"

"Those cookies look mighty good."

"I wish I could say I baked them, but they're out of a packet." Martha replied passing the plate of Oreos to the plains clothes policeman.

"Thank you very much; I have to confess these are my weakness." He smiled brightly. "Yes even before Doughnuts." He added.

"In that case take two." Martha told him, and he did.

"Ben won't be long." Martha continued as she poured to glasses of milk for the children so they could follow the ritual that the cookie gods had commanded. As they leapt into the seats at the Kitchen counter, she growled, "cookies" in her best cookie-monster impression. Peter screwed his face up in embarrassment, as Mary Jane laughed.

"Do you mind me asking why you need to speak with Ben?" Martha asked. "If he's been robbing any banks I can't help you, but they say the wife is always the last to know."

"Now Mrs Parker, don't you go messing with me." Jones said with an effected serious tone. "Honestly you don't have to worry; it's really ancient history in a manner of speaking. I'm working with our cold case division."

"Actually that sounds fascinating, and a little disturbing."

"Hallo Hallo" Ben Parker breezed in, and paused his pork pie hat half way between his head and the hat stand. Martha saw his look of surprise as her husband caught sight of the tall figure in a dark leather jacket stood eating cookies in his Kitchen. "Who have we here?" Ben asked.

Introductions were made quickly. Jones showed Ben his shield. "Detective John Jones" the older man noted "What can we do for you."

Martha served more coffee. They sat down in the sitting room. From the kitchen the children's excited chatter was less intrusive. She took a chair closest to the hall, where she could keep one eye on Peter and the new girl from next door through the open door to the Kitchen.

"As I was explaining to Martha," Jones was saying, "advances in DNA recognition techniques mean that the evidence that has been in storage for years, even decades, can now can give up information that just wasn't available to our predecessors."

"So I've heard." Ben replied looking he way. "So what's the bottom line Detective – where do I fit in?"

"You served with a special ops unit."

Ben nodded slowly. He frowned Martha recognised her husband wasn't liking where this conversation was going.

"Went by the name Easy Company" Jones added.

Ben cleared his throat. "Okay, what's this all about, because my war ended nearly thirty years ago, and Vietnam both then and now is half a world away out of NYPD's jurisdiction."

Martha noted that Jones didn't appear surprised by Ben's reaction.

"I realise this all seems a little abstract, but bear with me." The Detective replied.

"Son, I'm an old man now, patience is something I have in abundance, but time isn't so get to the point. I'll answer if I can." Ben told him.

Martha hoped the Policeman understood that Ben couldn't breach confidence. His service record was still classified. She didn't know what he'd done for his country. She told herself that not knowing didn't bother her, not now, not after all that time. She thought of Richard and Mary, and the cost of secrets and service, and she knew that it did.

"You served with a Canadian Specialist, went by the name of Logan." Jones told them.

Ben shook his head. "Did I?

"My memory isn't what it could be, some things from that time I've forgotten, because I was ordered to – if you follow me."

"I understand Mr Parker. Really I do." Jones answered. "I have a letter here." The Detective reached into his pocket, and passed over a tri-folded paper..

"Well what do y'know Martha" Ben commented, "Detective Jones has security clearance." He gave back the letter to the Policeman.

"Should I go see to the kids?" She asked.

Ben surprised her, he shook his head. "It's been thirty years Martha, if this young man knows about my war, I don't see why you shouldn't hear what he has to say." Parker then turned to Jones, and asked. "Since when has the NYPD been working hand in glove with SHIELD?"

"I follow the leads to wherever they go." Jones replied. "Sometimes that means what they call inter-agency cooperation, ie strong-arming one of Washington's Alphabet Soup Agencies, until they cry uncle." Jones returned to letter to his jacket, and then reached over into the other inside pocket, and fished out another envelope.

"Do you recognise this man?" Detective Jones passed over a black and white photo this time. A head shot, the face was in focus against a blurred background, along with a second colour shot, head and shoulders this time, framed against the blue of sky. Both showed the same person.

Parker laid them face up on the coffee table.

Ben Parker nodded. "Sure I know this guy. It's Canucklehead, a hell-raiser that went by the name of Logan. Canadian Specialist on loan to us back in the day."

"You mean Easy Company"

"Robin Hood and his Merry Men" Parker replied, adding "Summer '71. We had just broken in a new co-pilot, name of Ben Grimm. You maybe remember the name?"

The Detective responded after a brief pause for thought "Sure if y'mean the Astronaut?" Parker nodded an affirmative as Jones said. "As I recall he's piloted several Shuttle missions over the last few years."

"Yeah that's our Ben; he gave him -Logan, the handle Cannucklehead. Back then I was Big Ben, on account I was older, and of course Grimm was Little Ben, even then the kid outweighed me by about a hundred pounds."

Martha relaxed she hadn't learned much that was new, apart from this Canadian called Logan, which wasn't surprising since he wasn't a member of Ben's Unit. These were men she had met over the years; she knew their faces, if not the details of their adventures together.

"What if I was to tell you that the first picture was pulled from a negative dated 1945." Jones pointed to the black and white print, while this one was is from a stake-out, surveilling a gang operation in the city last week."

Parker sat back in his chair, he shook his head as he chuckled to himself. "There's an obvious explanation, father like son, but you wouldn't be here asking me if you thought that was it?"

Jones shook his head. "I hoping you can help me confirm a theory."

"Surely your lab reports carry more weight than my recollections." Ben Parker coughed "DNA doesn't lie."

Jones nodded. "If you're guessing that our lab has run blood evidence from different crimes scenes, and those results tell us we're dealing with a matched samples then you'd have guessed right." Jones paused tapping Logan's picture. "And they belong to this man only the incidents occurred decades apart." Jones lent forward. "Look Parker, I know you've seen things with Easy Company which don't make a whole lot of sense, let me tell you that while I was called into this by our Cold Case Division, my real brief is dealing with those kind of cases; those kind of people. It's how I come to know Director Fury. It's also how I know about the Wiesinger Effect."

Martha feigned disinterest. She glanced back to the Kitchen to look at Mary Jane and Peter. She however listened to Jones. The conversation had become very interesting.

"Detective I haven't seen Fury or our Lieutenant since the late seventies." Parker replied "not since Sergeant Rock's funeral, if burying an empty casket really counts as one. As for Logan, yes the things I saw didn't make sense.

"If you're here then I think you already know this hasn't anything to do with the Hawk-eye initiative, or the Infinity Formulae, because not only was that before my time with Easy Company, but I'm equally sure Logan wasn't part of those operations; that whatever keeps him going isn't that."

"Meaning?" Jones asked.

Ben looked up at him, his expression spoke of a heavy heart, he smiled as if relieved to be able to talk about this, and addressed the Policeman. "I saw him take a clip from an AK47 in the back. Up close and personal, because he was shielding me from those bullets. He shrugged that off like a kick in the pants. I mean he staggered forward, and we kept running, while he returned fire with his M16. The Colonel, our, Lieutenant and our Sergeant were both looking good back then for World War II vets, but even they couldn't do that, whatever happened to them after D Day kept them young, but they were still human. Logan was – is something else."

"Was he a good man?" Jones asked.

"If you object to drinking, chasing women, and smoking big cigars; cursing, and facial hair, then he's Satan himself, but if you count 'good' as being a loyal and effective soldier, then Logan was very good indeed."

Jones nodded. "Okay. I'm about done for now." He paused. "Can you tell me the whereabouts of Jonathan Kent's widow?"

"Washington – last we heard." Ben looked at Martha.

"Yes her last Christmas card was from the same Washington address." She confirmed.

Ben continued. "I don't think I've talked to May since the funeral. But knowing Jonathan I expect he'll have told May even less than I have told Martha about Easy Company's war, I'm sure she won't be able to help you."

Jones nodded again. Martha felt the Detective wasn't so sure about that.

"Final question" he said "did Logan ever show any signs of excessive rage, excessive violence?"

"It was war." Ben replied. "Individuals, on both sides, did horrible things, sure we all got called baby murderers and worse when we got home, but I didn't see Logan being like that, like I said he was a good soldier, even if the Canucks weren't officially in that fight."

Jones nodded, and stood up.

"What is it you're not telling us?" Martha asked. She saw it in the Detective's face, or perhaps more his manner, it was maybe women's intuition; whatever she felt compelled to ask.

Jones ran his hand across his close cropped hair. "Mrs Parker New York is a big place, and I've no reason to think this, but if for whatever reason you or your husband should happen to see Logan, please under any circumstances do not approach or engage him in any way."

"What is he meant to have done?" Ben demanded.

"I can't say."

"But it's bad." Martha concluded.

Jones didn't deny it.

"How bad?" Ben asked. He stared hard at the tall African American.

"Multiple homicide, nasty stuff, gang related" Jones paused. "I've told you more than I should already Mr Parker. Let's leave it there okay."

"It doesn't sound right, doesn't sound like the soldier I knew." Ben said.

"Times change and people change with them." Jones replied, pausing and looking in every way sincere and serious. "Here's my card, if you think of anything, whatever, don't hesitate to contact me."

Ben took it. Martha showed the Police Detective to the door. She closed it returning to Ben, he hadn't moved, looking at Jones' card as if it might reveal some hidden secret.

"Something is very wrong Martha. I think you maybe should give May a call, see if she's all right."

"Sure, as soon as next-door's girl goes home." She replied. "I'll do that; tell her to maybe expect a call from Detective Jones?"

Ben nodded. Martha didn't need to be a telepath to read his thoughts; he was wishing his old buddy Jonathan Kent was still alive.


	27. Chapter 27

"Darling" John Grey spoke to his wife. Elaine looked up from the task at hand, balancing the plate of canapés in one hand and juggling a glass of red wine in the other, the challenge that a buffet lunch always presented the attendants. The event was a fund-raiser being held on the Bard College Campus outside of Red Hook in New York State. John was a tenured Professor of History, and she worked in the administrative office as well as been a full time wife and mother. The function suite was in one the colleges Palladian style buildings, whose classic interior décor lent gravitas, and the tall spacious room was teeming with people, connected directly and indirectly to the College.

"I'd like to introduce you to Lyta Themis. She has just joined our Classics department."

"Oh, yes." Elaine smiled she turned as John spoke her name. "I'd shake your hand Lyta, but mine are full." Pausing Elaine let the fact Lyta Themis was a stunning sink in. As she looked up at the much taller woman facts from memory dropped into place. "You must be Carolyn Curtis's replacement?" Adding as an after thought. "So good of you to step into her place, and at such short notice. Carolyn was _so_ fortunate that the opportunity to study the Alexandria Texts came her way."

"Indeed." Lyta agreed. "The discovery of these forgotten documents has certainly caused great excitement."

Her accent was hard to place, she sounded classically English, but an occasional word, an inflection hinted at something else, another more exotic accent, suggesting that the Queen's English wasn't her first language.

John smiled enthused. "An understatement Lyta, if you don't mind me saying. Unknown works by Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Elucid, the list goes on, and all in an incredible state of preservation. They are already calling this find the Classical equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls."

"Discovery? It seems to me they were just abandoned." A younger voice noted. "Left in a old sack outside the Acropolis Museum in Athens."

"This opinionated teenager is my daughter." Lyta noted.

"Is there any other kind of teenager?" Elaine replied. Again she found that she had to look up. The young woman who had joined Lyta Themis was dark haired rather than blonde, but every inch her mothers daughter.

"Diana, this is Professor Grey and his wife Elaine."

Diana smiled. "Like a trick. Just stuffed in a bag, left like a thief in the night might. Wouldn't you say Professor. Worthy of Hermes himself?"

Lyta frowned at her daughter. Elaine smiled to herself, but at self same time felt sad. She was reminded of her own absent daughter, her own troublesome and troubled teenager.

John meantime laughed. "Well I don't know about that, but whoever it was bequeathed something incredible to the Greek nation and the world. Of course the circumstances are strange. Clearly they were in the hands of private collector – and of course that can be a murky world at times."

"How old are you Diana – will you be going to college yourself?"

"Diana is fourteen Mrs Grey." Lyta responded.

"Oh please call me Elaine, and Diana my apologies, you struck me as older."

"Don't worry." Diana replied. "I get that a lot, because I'm tall, people think that I'm older." She smiled again. "While mom here, they think she is waaaay younger than she really is."

Lyta frowned again. Diana continued. "Of course if she'd acted her age, I wouldn't have been born."

"Now Diana, that is quite enough for today." Lyta commanded. Elaine was taken aback somewhat, it wasn't so much the tone come volume of her words, but something else about Lyta's bearing, and attitude, it was almost military, as if this was a woman accustomed to being obeyed. Hardly fitting the usual the stereotype of a Classics Professor in any way shape or form.

Elaine Grey was intrigued. She determined to get to know the stunning Lyta Themis and her daughter Diana better.

Diana responded to her mother's instruction, and the fire in her eyes was only dimmed because she looked down at the floor. The teenager acquiesced. "Forgive me mother. I think I still have some unpacking to do."

As Diana left Elaine said. "Daughters that age, they can be troublesome."

"You have children?"

"A house full. Liam, Sara and Julia." Elaine replied. "And there's Jean, she's away at school at moment, but they are all a handful – and Jean especially. She's Diana's age."

Lyta appeared interested. Elaine continued in order to bond. "It's because Jean has special needs, things that made her act out – this is why we felt a residential school was best in the circumstances."

Lyta nodded. "That must have been difficult." She looked at John. "For you both." Then the taller woman added. "I have Diana."

Elaine understood that meant there was no one else. Just the two of them. What seemed to be an uncomfortable silence followed. She put her thoughts into words. "There's just the two of you?" She asked, and it felt clumsy, but the spell was broken even if Elaine glimpsed as she spoke John's disapproving stare.

However Elaine felt sure she had already built a rapport with Lyta, even though they had just met. It was not the first time she had connected with another person quickly, it was a talent of sorts, she thought of it as her gift. Something that Jean Grey had inherited in spades.

"Yes." Lyta answered her smile was broad enough to dispel any discomfort. "Just the two of us. I am as you say, a single parent, but at home I had an extended family, here we're very much alone. Strangers in a strange land."

"Not now." Elaine said extending her hand touching Lyta's arm. "If you ever need anything, we're just a couple of minutes outside the campus." She was sure there was a bond now. "And I know what it's like when you move – you misplace things, and any advice too; local services, where best to shop, anything. Just ask."

"So kind of you." Lyta said. "You must forgive Diana, she is not quite herself."

"Moving is always hard, to another country only more so." John Grey noted.

"Yes, that is true." Lyta agreed. "However it is more than that." Ms Themis shook her head, as if unsure what to say. "Diana only recently learned certain things, personal matters," Lyta paused again still undecided; she sighed, "it was the identity of her father. Something that I had for very good reasons kept from her, but before coming here to Bard, circumstances changed at home, and we had a frank discussion. She is still coming to terms with this."  
>"Oh Lyta, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." Elaine answered.<p>

Lyta shrugged. "Nor did I intend to over share."

"Then let's say we're new best buddies, and not worry about it." Elaine added. "Forgive me, but I don't think you said – where in Europe are you from?"

Lyta paused. "Oh one of the many Greek Islands, a remote place, you won't have heard of it."

"Am I interrupting." A man's voice interjected.

Elaine turned away from Lyta, and saw the speaker approach; he had crossed the busy room to join them. The stranger stood next to her husband, tall but thin, he lent on a rustic looking walking cane, naturally twisted, chosen for the accidental artistic worth. He was very fair, Scandinavian descent, she was almost certain, but thoroughly American given his accent.

"Donald Blake." He told her, she took his hand.

"Doctor Blake is attending as my guest today." Lyta explained.

Elaine thought to herself, not entirely alone then Lyta, she wasn't surprised by that, as Themis was a striking woman it stood to reason that she would have no problem finding a date. Elaine reminded herself that this kind of attention did not automatically translate into meaningful companionship. Besides Doctor Donald Blake wasn't an Adonis, rather her first impression was of frailty, but there was a hard edge to this man. A grumpy demeanour of someone in pain. Yet she felt drawn to Blake nonetheless. Perhaps it was this hidden strength that had attracted Lyta to the Doctor. On reflection Elaine recalled reading about Doctor Donald Blake, he was a surgeon of some note, his work ground breaking enough to be reported in the Newspapers."

"I rather twisted the good Doctor's arm." Lyta explained. "As yet I know so few people here, I asked Blake if he could attend."

"And lend some support." Professor Grey suggested gesturing to the fund-raiser banner above the buffet table.

"It's all in a good cause no doubt." Blake said as he reached out to John Grey in greeting. "You don't have the hands of desk jockey." The Doctor noted as he shook hands with her husband.

John nodded. "I'm still hands on when it comes to digging up the past. It pays to keep the callouses. In fact I'm fresh from the field."

"Interesting – any where exotic?" Blake asked, leaning both hands on his cane.

John Grey shook his head. "Local enough, but I won't say any more, we try to keep a lid on things to discourage treasure hunters."

"Is there a problem with that?" Lyta asked.

"Well it's a sensible precaution to keep sites secret where possible. Even a well meaning kid with a little knowledge and a budget metal detector can do a lot of damage to an archaeological resource; but there are individuals; thieves, who know exactly what they are doing – robbing artefacts to sell on the black market."

Blake shrugged. "So I've heard, people huh?" He lent forward. "Actually John we've a shared interest." The Doctor added as he tapped John on the arm. "In fact I've read some of your work – you could almost call me a fan."

Elaine felt there was something going on here, Blake appeared good humoured but she sensed an undercurrent of another agenda.

"Really, that's always flattering to hear," John smiled, "which papers, which subject do you mean?" Her husband asked.

Blake lent on his stick. "Mainly your stuff on the earliest Europeans in New York State."

"Ah. Vikings on the Hudson." Grey chuckled. "There is a certain romance about the voyages to Vinland."

"The Saga's are certainly written that way." Blake agreed, asking. "What do you make of Erik the Red's _mission_?" He added emphasis to the last word.

"Ah." John Grey coughed. Elaine noted this, she knew her husband well. Grey cleared his throat a nervous tick, before shaking his head in a belated denial. "Mission?" John laughed. "You make it sound almost – well conspiratorial."

"But you mention this idea more than once, albeit in passing?" The Doctor persisted, still gentle, and no audible edge to his voice, but Elaine knew there was more to this. Could it be about her husband's exciting secret. Could Blake have heard about what they'd uncovered at the dig site?

Her husband folded his arms, and stared blankly, before Elaine could break the silence, Lyta Themis spoke.

"Of course Blake breaking new ground in any academic discipline is challenging," Lyta interjected, "whether you are arguing for the existence of Troy in the face of great scepticism like Calvert, or Munn for Vinland – there is resistance from orthodoxy, men are invested in their reputations, and protecting what they have long held to be true – even if it isn't."

Elaine understood that, but Professor Themis seemed to imply this was now true in John's case – and it was. Professor Grey had made a significant discovery in the dank earth alongside the Hudson river, one traditional academia would find very troubling indeed.

"While I have found references to Erik the Red having a vision during his voyage," Grey admitted, "and that's interesting, most writings do suggest he was blown off course, and came to Vinland accidentally."

"Thor blew him to what would become know as America." Blake said.

"Yes, that's the crux of the vision myth." John grunted in surprise. He recovered his cool quick and said. "And it makes sense to a primitive people to ascribe chance events to a higher power. That doesn't diminish what Erik the Red and his people went on to do – the exploration of the North American Coast-lands from Newfoundland and south."

"Sailing up the Hudson to find a suitable resting place for the Souls of the fallen Vanir." Blake said in a quiet but deliberate tone.

John Grey frowned. "Forgive me Doctor Blake. Just what is your interest in this?"

Elaine recognised her husbands mood. He was angry and even a little scared. The silence was now very uncomfortable.

"I fear I've mentioned something that your husband is currently working on, something which he has yet to make public." Blake said.

Elaine nodded. That much was evident.

"Based on finds I've only just made." John agreed his arms folded. "I'm just intrigued to know how this information leaked. How a wealthy New York Surgeon with a interest in archaeology came to know about it?"

"You're worried I'm one of those individuals who play the Black Market in antiquities?" Blake asked. "You needn't be, but what you've found – what you are holding in storage, does place you – or whoever is close to the stones in danger."

Professor Grey's eyes narrowed at the mention of the word 'stones'. Elaine understood too - Blake did know about John's recent finds.

"I'm sorry, but that almost sounds like a threat." John replied.

"Rest assured John we're your friends." Lyta told him. "It's also a matter of some urgency, whatever security measures you have in place, won't be enough."

John Grey shook his head. "Believe me, I have friends who have friends, security isn't a problem."

Elaine was struck by Lyta's sincerity. It was understandable that John was guarded given they had only just met Blake and Lyta, yet Elaine felt for certain that this warning was real. "John perhaps you should here them out. I _feel_ it's for the best."

Elaine watched John's deep frown relax a little. Mrs Grey expected her husband to trust her feminine intuition, they had after all nearly twenty years together, most of them married, long enough for John to learn that she was almost always right.

"Hmm. Well perhaps I should," Professor Grey said, "but let's have this talk somewhere less public." He gestured to Lyta and Blake towards the door. "I suggest we continue this in my office."


	28. Chapter 28

-'*'-

Diana threw down a bundle of clothes onto her bed in exasperation. This was her room in the house the college had provided for them. Her mother had confounded and frustrated her in the same moment. For her lifetime, which to her felt like forever - even if she knew that wasn't true, there had been no father in her life.

Then Hippolyta Queen of the Amazon's had told her it was all a lie, she had given her his name; Zeus King of the gods and ruler of Olympus, and in the same breath her mother told Diana that they had to run away from their home. "Like common thieves!" She said to herself, throwing themselves on the mercy of their patron Hermes, fleeing paradise for the Patriarch's world.

Back on the island Diana was a teenager growing up alone among adults, and she could be angry at her mother in six different ways before breakfast, but it was impossible for Diana to deny the love that existed between them.

More than that, as she looked out of the window across the Bard campus she couldn't deny that leaving Themyscira was very exciting; sure, she felt conflicted about her relationship with Hippolyta and she hated being forced to run and hide, but at the same time Diana was really very pleased to be somewhere different. This was America; the kind of adventure she had only ever dreamed of taking while living on Themyscira.

Diana found her thoughts interrupted. Her acute senses, given by the goddess of the hunt, alerted her to the sounds of conflict, some distance across the College grounds. Diana filtered from the background hum and chatter, cries of alarm and surprise. Focusing her attention further, focusing as she had been trained to do through the sounds; the shouts and drumming of running feet, Diana heard her mother's cry, and deeper still the beating of her heart, fast and strong. This was the music of the warrior. Diana for a brief moment, stared at her reflection in the surface of her bracelets, the ever present symbol of her Amazon heritage. Outside the house Diana wore long sleeved tops, so she could wear these without attracting attention to them. Here and now they spoke to her as potent symbols. She didn't think about hiding who she was, only the sound of her mother's battle-cry.

Focusing on her Amazon training Diana ran. Years of practise had honed her muscles, and she had worked hard matching herself against her much older and more powerful adult sisters, but she was always the smaller, always the slower, always the weaker. She had heard the laughter, caught the names some of her sisters called her when they thought their Queen wasn't listening. Today she felt sorry for them, they too had believed Hippolyta's story about her birth. Then with adolescence had come growing strength and stamina. So fate had conspired, just when Diana felt able compete as an equal, to deny her that challenge, and taken her to a far more dangerous place. This certain knowledge propelled her to her mother's side.

Locating the Amazon Queen, having taken the name of Lyta Themis was as simple as listening for her voice. Carried over the wind, Diana leapt high over obstacles and moved, a blur in a red t shirt and jeans, and a mane of long vivid black hair.

She dropped into a crouch finding a vantage point behind cover, a large black SUV shielded her from view. It was perhaps fitting and coincidental that this Federal Vehicle carried the SHIELD logo. Diana had no time to process what that might mean.

Across the parking lot was the History Department smoke was rising from the second floor, then a wall exploded outwards, and among the bricks mortar through the dust and smoke a figure was propelled backwards through the air, there was a soft wet squelch as the body met the pavement, it bounced over and over again. Everything Diana knew about men told her this one should be dead, but there followed different sounds, scratching, scraping biting, of metal dragging over, on, and into concrete.

Diana saw the man rise defiant, his bare arms bloodied, but not broken. He wore black and brown leathers with a striped camouflage pattern. As she watched his flesh knitted together and his hands rose from the floor, revealing long metallic claws that grew out of his fists, they gleamed with an artificial luminescent silver, as if moon kissed, ethereal, her Amazon senses saw something otherworldly, godly, and yet alien. The long blades had sunk into the pavement arresting his backward fall. Now he brought them up unscathed from broken ground. Staring upwards the short stocky man, by her standards at least, growled, but it was not the dignified sound of a beast enraged. Diana could have reached out to a wild animal, she had a gift with living things, but this was a driven man with all man's cruel intelligence.

She followed his gaze back to the History Department, emerging from the wrecked wall jumped a man, no she corrected herself, it was a god. An Amazon knew the difference, and this golden haired warrior's leap carried him to the broken ground in front of those clawed fists of the angry man. He carried a war hammer in his hand, and it spun lightly around in his fingers as if it carried no weight. His cloak was torn, his chest plate bore deep scratches.

"Thor." Diana recognised the Aesir, Prince of Asgard. She knew the reality of his cursed existence, or at least the story Hermes had told her mother. Thor had been disciplined by his father, sent to Earth, and bound in the weak human form of Donald Blake, but Odin had not left him entirely powerless, in moments of crisis Thor could emerge from the Blake persona, the symbol of his weakness a twisted ash cane became the Mjollnir – the hammer in the hands of broad tall muscular god.

The Mighty Thor brings the Hammer down on the angry man with lightning speed, it crashes into his crossed claws that form a cage above him, the ground shakes, along with flesh on his bones, rippling with the force wave, but the man does not bend, neither do his claws break, instead lightening like electrical discharge crackles outwards from the combatants as if they were a living telsa coil, it strikes and snatches at the parked cars, setting off explosions as the fuel in their tanks ignites, sending tons of metal twisting and burning into the air, creating a fiery hell rain of burning oils and plastics, hot metal and flame.

"Thou hast the spirit of the Wolverine indeed!" Thor boomed, his voice as thunder. "Verily Weasel you reach too high, you will fall."

"Say's you bub." The Wolverine growled, unleashing his claws in a viscous frontal assault cutting up and under at Thor's underbelly.

Thor roars in pain and swings his hammer down between them, bowling the smaller man back once again. "What manner of metal cuts through Asgardian Armour?" Thor gasps. Falling to one knee the Thunder god rests his hammer on the ground as high above him dark clouds roar inwards across the sky and lightning bolts flash followed by deafening crashes.

The Wolverine emerges from a wrecked car, he bounds back. Thor rises, one hand clasped tight to his midsection. Blood runs through his fingers.

Diana sees that Thor is forced to hold back his entrails. The Berserker had almost eviscerated him.

Diana leaps forward, her thought is to assist, but she is met by a figure in black, then another, then another, and then more. Each emerging from the shadows, as if birthed from the wreckage, slipping out of the smoke and carnage. They move in unison as if directed by a common mind. In that moment Diana's training asserts itself, her mind remembers the dance of defence, the ballet of battle, and she counters.

Even while this happens a second figure emerges fast from the building. This great leap lands Hippolyta in-between the wounded Aseir, and the berserker Wolverine.

Her mother shouts. "Catch your breath Prince of Asgard." The Warrior Woman stands, her armour shines with mystic energy, shield and sword in hand, around her waist is her Golden Girdle conferring upon her godly strength.

"Come on Babe, I'm an equal opportunities scrapper." The Wolverine snarled as he came at the Amazon Queen, his claws struck but found only her shield.

Diana leapt across her attackers, driving one down to the ground while springing from atop the second black clad and masked ninja, feet forward into the face of two more, catching them with both with a flying double kick, with her remaining hand she drags a fourth attacker up and into the first who collapsed beneath the young Amazon as she vaulted over them.

Landing on a parked cars roof, the brief respite let Diana see how the Wolverine's claws had done the impossible. The berserker's blades dug deep scratches across the god made adamant surface of her mother's shield. Wolverines claws glowed bright like hot metal as they did struck again. Even from across the parking lot the smell of burning leather, then hair and flesh, caught in her nostrils. The berserker's claws burned him, and all the while Wolverine screamed in pain filled rage his assault was unflinching. The berserker tore at her mother's god-made shield, the adamant surface buckled and broke, but Hippolyta's strength held the Wolverine back long enough. The Amazon's Queen's sword slipped through past her opponents red hot claws.

Diana watched as her mother cut deep, the sword grated against what what should have been bone, exiting between the Wolverine's ribs, blood flowed, flesh sliced, exposing something else metallic and bright just like his claws, his very skeleton appeared to be cast out of this strange brilliant alloy.

More ninja attackers circled, fresh soldiers to the fray. How many men followed this berserker's lead she wondered – and what is his purpose, and why does Thor and my mother risk exposing themselves to stand in his way?

Hippolyta wasted no time, with the berserker fallen, there were no words on her lips, only determination as the sharpest of swords, forged with magic to cut through all and anything swept down in a killing blow.

Only her mother was shoved back before her sword could strike. Lightning from above made ground, crashing between her mother and the fallen Wolverine. A fiery ball, the lighting crackled a sphere of energy bright like a tiny sun, burning for a brief moment, then it was gone, and in it's place another player literally appeared on the field of battle. Crackling into reality.

Crouched low as if wrapped into a ball himself, the man bellowed a muffled cry in an old tongue. Diana understood him none the less. The man had cried out in ancient Greek "_Free at last_."

"Great Hera." Hippolyta said.

Diana saw her mother recover her footing. The Amazon Queen had been driven away from the Wolverine, by the force of the lightning. Hippolyta had been flung tens of yards back to the broken wall of the History building, the fallen berserker as far again in the opposite direction.

"_Great Hera indeed_." The figure in the midst of this continued to speak in ancient Greek as he rose to his feet, half naked except for a loin cloth and a lion skin, he shook himself like a dog.

"_Freedom_!" He chortled and then roared, "_Freedom_!" The savage man raised a mace above his head, little more than an iron club, but Diana saw straight away that it bore the mark of Olympus. That this weapon had been forged in the great fires of Mountain by the lame god.

Diana was then forced from her vantage point. The black clad soldiers returned, they struck out again and again, pirouetting into flying kicks, revisiting their lethal dance.

Diana recognised their manner and their method. Her studies in the Great Library of Themyscira had included the Guild of Assassins signature style.

That this ancient order of killers had remained active into modern times did not surprise the young Amazon, rather it reinforced her understanding of the nature of the Patriarch's World.

They paid no heed to their fallen, as this new wave of fighters flung themselves forward at her again with deadly intent.

Diana struggled with her morals, her blows struck hard, incapacitating, but the sheer numbers of assailants made her decision to hold back from mortal blows harder to keep, harder for her to be sure of her targets, and methods. Diana was pushed back – away from her mother, and away from the savage man.

The young Amazon was angry at herself. Diana had been caught off guard, the Assassin's had regrouped while she had been distracted. Diana recognised the savage man. It was another impossible thing. Diana knew him from his clothing, his bearing, and his choice of weapon. As she struck back through the ninja's who thronged around her, his name crossed her lips. "Herakles."

The demi-god strode toward her mother his face a wide smile of recognition. "_Hippolyta my love,it has been a long time, I see you have regained your girdle._"

"Monster." Hippolyta responded.

"_I know not what tongue you speak, but your voice is lovely to my ears. All I have heard for these centuries is the screams of the beasts held back by Doom Gate. The only touch I felt was their sharp claws, scratching at me, a living statue cursed to be a pillar supporting your island._"

"_How is it you walk free?_" Hippolyta responded using his Greek dialect, while placing her sword point between them.

"_So you knew of my fate._" Herakles concluded as he shook his head in disdain. "_Did you not see me ride here on a lightning bolt_?"

"_I did, but I can't believe Zeus himself would do such a thing._"

"_Aye, tis a sorry tale when a son falls short of his father's expectations. Still it was not Zeus who cast me down, there are others who are granted the honour of using my father's thunderbolt, and my dearest Queen can you guess, let me help, it was not Athena who made me a stone pillar beneath Themyscira on the wrong side of Dooms Gate. Rather it is my gaoler who has released me._"

"_Hera – but she would never..."_

"_Wouldn't she?" _Herakles asked. _"What better revenge on a bastard of Zeus, and the child's mother, than to use another bastard of Zeus, and one who knows you and your kind intimately?"_

"_Neither you nor Hera understand what is at stake here."_

"_I care not." _Herakles snapped_. "My task is to sate Hera's wrath, she wants blood, yours and your whelp, and nothing less will win me my freedom from her curse."_

"_Nay brute, ye shall not offend!" _Thorstepped forward, his flesh had knit together in the short moments that had passed, saying to Hippolyta in English. "Let us play to our strengths, and their weaknesses."

Diana free of the assassins, the young Amazon moved quickly leaping to right, diving over bushes and springing across a line of broken burning cars fighting back to where the combatants closed on each other.

As the same time the Wolverine was also moving, but the berserker ignored them, instead he took advantage of the Olympian. Herakles was a distraction, Diana grasped this, as she saw the Wolverine run back towards the broken History department, for all the man's savagery his purpose wasn't to fight her mother or Thor, but something else, something inside the broken building.

Thor met Herakles in clash of mace and hammer. Brute strength to strong brute, Asgardian to Olympian. The ground shook.

Hipolyta leapt in the air and somersaulted onto her feet directly in the path of the sprinting Wolverine.

The Amazon Queen hurled her broken shield, at the berserker, and with her free left hand drew a long dirk from her belt. She met the Wolverine ready with sword and dagger, and caught the claws of the berserker with her baldes. The Amazon's Queen's magically forged weapons met his, Hippolyta's knives forged by Hepheastus, sparked with Olympian lightning as they clashed, and reacting the Wolverine's claws glowed red again.

Diana ran towards her mother, confident she had beaten her way through the Berserker's allies, she wasn't intending to give the Assassins time to regroup again.

The smoke from the broken History building ahead changed direction, as something more powerful than the wind whipped the air around them. Diana heard the dull thump of rotor blades above as an aircraft dropped from the sky, too silently for it's vast size, Diana did not pretend to be an expert in the technologies of the Patriarch's World, but she saw this airship as something unusual nonetheless. Troops fell from opening doors, falling the thirty to forty feet to the ground unassisted. As soon as they had disembarked the large vehicles engines groaned and the huge black craft moved upwards back towards the clouds, but not before a volley of missile tore down towards Thor and Herakles smashing into them both. The airship thankfully did not target her mother. Then Diana reconsidered, her second thought was the airship hadn't targeted Hippolyta because of the Wolverine.

Diana saw the newly arrived armoured troops were unlike anything she had ever encountered. Her highly trained senses determined them to be inhuman, like a version of Frankenstein's monster from the book she had only just recently read. Like Victor's creation these men were not truly alive, they lacked the spark of life that her Amazon senses were attuned to. Diana heard no pulse, absent a natural rhythmic heartbeat, in it's place a steady hum of a mechanical pump. Even though clad in some kind of armour like clothing, she could see their limbs were augmented by metal, devices were bonded to their flesh visible on their face beneath their military issue helmets.

Despite the missile barrage, Thor and Herakles fought on, and the ground beneath her feet continued to tremble.

A gun rapped out to her right. Steady aimed shots at these man-machines. Bullets flew past her and hit the first of the cyborg warriors. A voice cried out. "Run!"

Then the same man was talking into some field radio. "Get me Director Fury!"

A response crackled. "Agent Camisa Roja?"

"No, dammit this is Coulson, she's dead,.. Guild of Assassins ."

"The new guy? Did you say Guild of Assassins."

"Yes - this is Agent Coulson, and that's not even half of what's going down."

Coulson let off more shots. The machine-men reacted to being targeted, bullets spewed from weapons indistinguishable from their fore arms.

Diana ignored the Shield Agent's instruction to run. The young Amazon kicked herself across the rain of bullets, leaping direct in the line of fire, calmly she moved her adamant bracer's into the path of the bullets, full metal jackets met with Amazon forged metal, sparks flew around her, Diana felt the sting of recoil, but slid to landing on her feet. Her wrists ached, and her bracelets were bruised with white distortions where metal had met metal.

Diana saw that Agent Coulson was a young man, only handful of years or so older than her, and he looked scared. He was bleeding from a wound to his leg, one that had just missed his femoral artery, an Assassin's cut, that had fallen short of being lethal. Coulson had got lucky. The Agent shouted into his sleeve. "Repeat. Dammit. I know I'm fresh out of the stable, but I can recognise the Deathlok Program when it's walking and shooting at me!"

Diana turned to face the things that Coulson had called Deathlok, but these machine-men were no longer interested in them, rather moving as a squad in mechanical unison, they broke into a run towards the History building.

"What is it." Diana asked Coulson. "What's in there that's so important?"

"Who are you?" Coulson responded, not answering her. "How did you do that?"

Diana replied by picking him up, placing her arm around his waist. A heart beat later she had leapt back across the lot, back to where she had started, only minutes ago. She grimaced in frustration, thinking how quickly the tide of battle can reverse hard won ground. The young Amazon placed the Agent behind his SUV. She figured it was special, armoured in some way, as it still stood relatively intact. She ripped her own red vest top, cropping it short, bearing her midrift, taking the strip of cotton fabric she made a tourniquet to stem the bleeding from Coulson's leg wound.

"Thanks." The young SHIELD Agent gasped. The concrete trembled beneath them, less so than before. Herakles and Thor wrestled and the ground shook, and their fight had carved a trench of destruction, punctuated by the missile created crater, but the Thunder god had carried the fight and the Olympian away from the college, into the open countryside. He was doing his part, but containing Herakles meant Hippolyta now stood alone against the assembled forces, the Assassins and their Deathlok man-machine allies. Led, Diana assumed, by the Wolverine,

Diana looked across to where her mother was fencing with the Berserker, matching her skill against his fury, her blades to his claws, it was both horrible and beautiful to behold at the same time, her elegant motion versus his brutal assault. However the machine-men were already tipping the balance. They began firing at the Amazon Queen as they charged across the parking lot from their drop zone.

"Stay here." Diana told Coulson. She ran, leaping over obstacles as she sprinted forward, putting herself between her mother and the Deathlok cyborgs.

Then another crash sounded, loud even over the sound of automatic gunfire.

"Now what?" Diana asked as she shielded her eyes from the fragmented pavement in flight around her. She turned to see a youth standing a few feet from her, the ground had broken under his feet. He wore a black leather jacket across broad shoulders, jeans and a pair of work boots. His hair was dark and windswept, and it settled back across his brow in a curl, he looked at her, his eyes were the brightest of blues, he could have been handsome if he weren't so very angry, then as the newcomer turned to where the Wolverine was fighting her mother, they glowed red.


	29. Chapter 29

Kent hit the ground angry, he hadn't anticipated this kind of reception at Bard College. Of all the scenarios he'd considered this one wasn't even close. His friend and mentor was being attacked. His erstwhile Uncle Jimmy was in an up and close fight with a Warrior Woman. She was both blonde and beautiful, tall and special like him; faster and stronger than simply human. The Warrior Woman fought the man Kent recognised as James Logan, fencing away flashing claws, in one hand a long dagger, and in her other a sword. This woman wore armour that reminded Kent of classical Greek images. Kent acted instinctively, he turned, his eyes glowed red in rage and power. Kent projected a beam of heat between them.

Logan's eyes snapped around, a long second past as Kent saw no welcome flicker of recognition in the stubble covered face, instead only the stare of a man enraged. Both combatants interpreted his intervention as hostile. As they paused in the fight to stare at him, a stranger and a threat, Kent remembered how he'd come to be here.

Kent had left the Xavier mansion to protect Jean Grey, she had somehow drilled down into his memories telepathically, and he had reacted, his powers had almost broken out of his control. The thing was, Kent wasn't sure Jean Grey had been aware she could do any of this. Yet Kent felt sure that Jean had understood something; that Jean had seen the things she had made him remember - glimpsing the monsters from his suppressed nightmares, and at the same time there had been some kind of psychic feedback. Jean had given as well as received, and Kent had found himself overwhelmed by her own traumatic past. This more than anything had triggered his loss of self control.

Kent had seen her hidden memories, replaying the death of a little girl, Jean's friend Katherine under the wheels of blue sedan on the road close to her home. He'd seen how this trauma had caused Jean Grey's mutant abilities to manifest. He'd relived that moment. Experienced all of Jean's feelings of fear and guilt and had felt her sense of rejection by those she loved; her family. Driven to make sense of these shared memories, Kent had travelled across country to Jean's home at Bard, compelled to confront the people who had rejected Jean, even if this idea made little sense – it felt right.

Right now Kent understood that the man he recognised as James Logan didn't recognise him. This was like a punch to the gut, and was followed by another like blow to his head. Kent processed the detail of what he saw, the differences between James then and now. Details he only absorbed now he'd had second thoughts. Kent wasn't unsurprised at first by the expression of rage the hairy man wore, he'd experienced Logan's berserker rage before, but there were other changes, first and visible was his claws that glowed red like hot metal, not white bone. Kent stood in the small crater he had made, staring for a long time by his standards, fractions of a second ticked past, while he looked deeper at the hidden changes beneath the older man's muscle, right down to his metal bones. As Kent began to doubt his assumptions, question as to whether this man was in fact James Logan, but rather someone – even something else hit him.

He'd seen a girl out of the corner of his eye, she had used the available cover provided by the parking lot's various wrecked automobiles to approach. A tall young woman, maybe taller than him, jeans and torn t-shirt cropped around the waist revealing a flat stomach. Now she hit him like a semi-truck breaking the speed limit.

Kent realised she wasn't simply human either.

The force bowled him past Logan and into the lower floor of the history building. Kent knew this because it featured in the memories Jean Grey had shared. This was where her dad worked, now he'd been thrown through the wall, smashing stone and mortar, like a wrecking ball.

"Diana!" The Warrior Woman shouted. "Don't let that boy-thing reach Professor Grey."

The young woman followed him through the gap he'd made a moment before, she, Kent assumed this was Diana, and she was connected to the Warrior Woman who was fighting the man who looked like his once upon time uncle Jimmy.

The young woman hurled herself at him once again. Kent was ready this time, and he stood his ground before jerking away at the last moment. There was a whip cracking sound as he snapped to one side. Diana for her part collided with the far wall of the room, cracking it, raining plaster, before using it to alter her trajectory, fast. Kent dodged again, but this time his opponent was prepared for his speed, and with an outstretched hand she made contact, grabbing his arm, this anchor point pulled them together and they tumbled into the desk and chairs of what appeared to be a lounge come recreation room.

Kent found himself on the floor, straddled by Diana, she held his arms, and was doing a pretty good job of that.

"Look I don't want to fight you." Kent told her.

Diana's hard expression didn't soften any, but she did frown ever so slightly. "Shouldn't have attacked my mother then." She hissed between her teeth.

"Your mother?" Kent asked, "She's the woman attacking Logan."

"I think you have that the wrong way around." Diana snapped. "He attacked her."

Kent processed the implications.

"Who are you working for?" Diana demanded.

"I'm not working for anyone." Kent said. He decided she was younger than she looked, probably his age or thereabouts, even so he felt uncomfortable, out of his depth. It wasn't a feeling Kent liked or was accustomed too. Remembering his Pa's advice Kent stuck to the truth. "And okay I may have got it the wrong way around. I don't know why my friend is here." He admitted. "Even if it's really him."

"What do you mean?"

"The man outside with your mother, was... like an uncle to me. Thing is I haven't seen him for years, he was taken. Look it's a long story." Kent told her. "But if that's him something – someone has changed him."

Diana frowned. "You're not human, are you one of them?"

Kent shrugged, or he tried to, it was hard with Diana holding his arms. "Look right now your mother is fighting him, and she's having to contend with incoming fire from a group of what look like soldiers." His superhuman vision revealed to him the truth of what they were. Even if that didn't make any sense.

Diana glanced through the hole she had made in the wall with him as her tool of destruction. The chatter of automatic gunfire echoed outside.

"They aren't soldiers." Diana told him. "They aren't even alive."

"I can see what they are." Kent said pushing back for the first time, his arms raised from the floor just as she leant forward, there was a moment of impasse.

"Just what are you?" Diana asked through gritted teeth.

"Another long story." Kent replied. "They're not alive?" He asked. "The Cyborgs?"

Diana shook her head. "They aren't living things. I'm sure of it."

Kent could feel her pulse, hear her heartbeat. He was pretty certain she wasn't lying. Relaxing from the tussle he turned his head he let fly a burst of fire in the direction of one of the attacking cyborgs. His heat vision targeting the inhuman soldier through the hole in the building they'd made earlier. There was a loud bang as the mechanisms magazine exploded, the bullets superheated igniting the gunpowder. The man-machine staggered, its integrated weapons assembly was blown apart and both its mechanical and biological systems were damaged.

Kent smiled, it was still functioning if ineffective.

"Neat trick, but I'm not convinced." She said. "What do you want with Professor Grey, why do you want to hurt him?"

"I don't." Kent told her. "He's the father of my friend."

Diana's eyes narrowed.

"Jean Grey. We're at school together."

-'*'-

Jean Grey watched Raven Darkholme piloting Xavier's modified Bell 430 hybrid helicopter. The aircraft had travelled the seventy odd miles between the Xavier Mansion and Bard College in under ten minutes. Hank rode in the co-pilot seat, beside her in the passenger compartment was Scott, Angel and Bobby. Xavier was close by, present in their minds telepathically. The Professor also had a unique relationship with the aircraft's on-board electronics. Jean understood that telepathy was a form of electromagnetism. Thoughts being electrical impulses, the same telepathic nudge that could turn neurons on and off in the bio-electrical system - that was the human brain, could also work specially calibrated electrical switches, in this case the automated systems fitted to the Helicopter. Xavier could fly them remotely if necessary.

The Professor had identified Kent Logan's initially chaotic course using seismographs sited at the Mansion, the Professor was prepared for most eventualities, even Kent going wild. Once in the air the Xavier used the helicopters on-board military-grade tracking system to lock onto Kent's heat signature. The Professor had determined a few minutes into their mission that Kent was moving again, this time in a deliberate fashion – he had a direction. Even before Xavier confirmed it Jean knew where Kent was headed. It was her fault.

"_Mystique_." The Professor had asked. "_A northerly heading if you will_."

Somewhere over open country Raven had open up the throttles of the twin jets mounted inside the aircraft's short wings, at the same time the drive to the main rotor had slowed and the helicopter had effectively became an autogyro on the fly. Top speed increased from a shade under two hundred miles per hour to something approaching Mach one.

The Professor had continued to communicate. He briefed them all telepathically.

"_I'm receiving data of a possible terrorist strike at Bard Campus."_

"That's where Jean's parents are based," Raven had responded, "and it's also along Kent's extrapolated route."

Jean remembered how the others had looked at her full of questions.

"_Correct. We should assume Bard College is Kent's intended destination." _The Professor had told them all.

"Is there a connection?" Raven had asked.

"_Unknown, it maybe a terrible coincidence, after all Kent is still moving, he hasn't reached Bard."_

"Yet." Raven had noted. "Will we get there first?"

"_Too close to call." _Xavier had answered. "_News blackout protocols are in place. State Police have cordoned off the Campus. Telecommunications are suspended._

Saying a moment or so later. "_A military response is inbound, but you have a twenty minute window from your ETA to complete the extraction."_

"Affirmative." Raven had responded. "Do you have a threat assessment Professor?"

"_Situation is confused. There are multiple players present._

Hank had turned and looked at Darkholme with a troubled expression reacting to the Professor statement.

Jean had understood that things had taken another unexpected turn.

Xavier then told them_ "At least four persons involved are demonstrably meta-human."_

Raven had shook her head, unhappy at this point. Jean had determined that her tutor was reluctant to continue, and then the Professor's news had only got worse.

"_There is a large unidentified stealthy aircraft currently parked at altitude after placing ground forces in support of one faction. This vessel conforms to no known military design, but has demonstrated that it is armed with air to surface missiles."_

"Sounds all too familiar." Raven had responded. "Charles, our kids aren't ready to take on Majestic Twelve. What the hell is going on there?"

"_I am accessing data." _Was the Professor's opaque response.

Jean had pictured Xavier seated in the underground computer control centre called Cerebo.

Despite her misgivings Darkholme had proceeded north.

"_Correction two Meta-humans are expressing at Alpha level." _The Professor's next statement prompted an immediate response from Darkholme.

"Surely Charles, we have to abort?" Raven had asked.

"_I'm assessing what's a very fluid situation, continue on your present course and standby." _Xavier had explained_ "Proceed as planned – for now." _The Professor had told them.

Scott and others looked visibly deflated. They had come to the conclusion, Jean had thought, that the mission was going to be abandoned, and despite the danger ahead or perhaps because of it they were all, even her, excited for an opportunity to apply what they had learned.

After a further minute and sixty miles or so had passed the Professor had communicated once more.

"_I have determined one Alpha combatant is ensuring the other; their fight, stays in open countryside, and away from civilians. The Airship has followed them. Given this situation – and the clear and present danger to Kent, this mission is a go."_

Raven had nodded, her face had hardened with grim determination.

"_My X-Men you are to avoid contact with Alpha Meta-humans, and the authorities. Good luck, and I'm with you every step of the way."_

Raven Darkholme had been unhappy about this field trip even before their objective had descended into a chaotic battlefield of unknown superhuman combatants. Her expression said as much and more. In her tutor's mind Jean knew they were all still just children. Jean agreed that they were, both young and inexperienced, but no student at the Xavier School was _just_ a child.

Jean watched as Raven cut the jets back and felt the rotor as it powered on. With a stifled scream the aircraft dropped down across the Bard Campus. Below them a sports field provided the open space Darkholme required to land. The Hybrid Helicopter's owl feather inspired composite rotors cut through the air far more quietly than standard alloy blades, and the modified No Tail Rotor design made the vehicle quieter still. Even as the bird set down on its landing wheels, the occupants felt the ongoing ground tremors. Vibrations rumbled across the land as the two demonstrably Alpha level Meta-humans fought their increasingly distant battle.

Jean knew this was the reason the mission could go ahead, it was still a dangerous situation, and Jean wondered what was so special about Kent Logan that he warranted such risks?

The doors hissed open on hydraulic assists and the X-Men exited their seats ready for their first field trip.

"Stay close to me." Raven told them. "This goes by the numbers just as we've practised. Masks on and code names at all times."

The face masks were tight fitting hoods, moulded from light weight composite, thickening around the skull, for protection. They were all pretty similar, bar Scott's which had integrated a special ruby red visor, a weaponised version of the simpler dark glasses he wore day to day. Xavier had provided them with fitted body armour fashioned to military style jump suits, coloured in grey and black pattern, effectively an urban camouflage, there were detail differences, mainly to accommodate their various body shapes, and unique abilities.

"Okay, this isn't what we were expecting when we left the school." Raven gestured to the chaos across campus at the history department. "But you all heard the Professor's briefing while we were in the air, so you know what is expected of you. Stay clear of the Alpha's. Remember we're here to extract Kent. Don't get side-tracked by what's going on, and don't think you're ready for anything like this – you're not."

"What if he doesn't want to be extracted?" Bobby asked.  
>Scott nodded as much to say he was thinking the same thing.<p>

"That's my job." Jean told them. "At least I'm going to work with the Professor to reach out to him."

Scott was probably frowning as he said. "Isn't your trying to help Kent where all this started?" Jean couldn't see under the mask, but she knew.

"Kent's mind isn't wired like ours." Jean said, Bobby snorted, but she ignored him, and continued, that's why the Professor has a hard time touching his thoughts if he isn't close by, I'm just boosting the signal really." She shrugged. "But if you want to see it another way, Scott then sure I'm cleaning up after myself."

"Fine." Scott replied. "Let's just make sure Kent doesn't get any of us hurt or worse."

"Enough already." Raven snapped. "Let's move, Angel give us a birds-eye, everyone else on my six. The Professor tells me Kent is close to the parking lot. Move."


	30. Chapter 30

Silver Fox from the relative anonymity of a dark sedan watched the life in suburbia; Forest Hills, Queens, New York unfold.

The black BMW 5 series didn't carry the usual descriptive badges. Its rims weren't the kind that wore the bone jarring but fashionable low profile tires. A second glance by some one who knew about these things would have perhaps noticed the lower stance, the twin tail pipes, one for each bank of the highly tuned V8 lurking under the hood. Silver Fox sat behind the tinted glass. Knuckles white her hands gripped the wheel tightly, letting go only to ignite the engine into life.

Something was very wrong, her developed sixth sense tried to focus, to drill down to feel what that something was.

She watched as the lithe NYPD detective John Jones stepped down from the front porch of the house that belonged to Ben and Martha Parker. It was to here, that Silver Fox had brought the orphaned baby boy Peter, to his great aunt and uncle, after she had failed to save the childs parents, their nephew and his wife, from an assassins bullet.

The Detective stood briefly still, like a man who'd forgotten something; say left behind car keys, or a hat or coat, but it wasn't so.

There was something very odd about this plain clothes cop, something which lay beyond the ken of normal human beings. He looked like a tall well built man, he moved like an athlete, but Silver Fox didn't just perceive Jones with five senses, but six. A siren scream, a piercing wail of grief and torment swept from Detective Jones like an angry whirlwind. It slammed into her mind with all the force of a flashing crashing thunder storm. All this before he was even aware of her presence. This wasn't a pre-emptive attack by a hostile psychic, it was just who John Jones really was.

He turned towards her, staring at the parked car. His eyes seemed to deepen, darken to burning coals, as he stared through the tinted glass directly into her mind.

There was contact. No longer than a heartbeat. A meeting of minds.

In that moment she and the man hunter reached an understanding.

Jon Jones was a cop, he worked his beat, took home a cop's salary, and didn't take up the many opportunities to supplement that, in every way he was true blue. But then again he wasn't all that either.

Silver Fox had encountered an alien mind before, the star child, now safely enrolled, or so she believed, in the Xavier School for the gifted. However Jones's mind was of a different even more alien kind.

His thoughts raced like the Kent's adopted son, but the similarity ended here. Jones's human appearance was a complete deception. 'John' was alien in both mind and body, different in radical ways from both her and the star child.

John Jones shared memories with her. She glimpsed his purpose, and he hers.

Silver Fox gasped, her mouth dry as the red sands that she could see spreading away as far as the eye could see. Across jagged mountains and deep gorges, peaks and troughs greater than any on Earth.

Mars.

Long dead, the red planet Earth's near by sibling had once sustained life, time and circumstance had conspired to erode and erase the evidence of a long past civilisation from the surface of this world. A twist of fate had conspired to transport Jon Jones across time and space, casting him down to Earth eons later.

A stranger in a strange lands.

He was looking for Logan.

The alien man hunter reached for the door handle of her car. She obliged by releasing the lock, it was a less a gesture of trust but an acceptance of the reality of this situation. Silver Fox knew German engineering stood no chance against this otherworldly shape shifter.

Jones lowered himself into the passenger seat. In truth this alien life form had no definitive physical appearance. Jones had shared with her memories of a tall gangly alien humanoids, green creatures happy on the red sands of Mars, but this was still only a half truth, for them identity wasn't a solid form with topographic features, because that changed as the environment dictated, rather identity was a psychic one, the pattern of their thoughts, not their outward form.

Jones didn't recognise a friend by their noses or their hair cut and colouring, Jon instead looked for the shape and pattern of the minds. Earth was an alien world to Jones, it's natives were both primitive and savage, but it wasn't their faces he found strange, but rather their thoughts, for a long time humans looked all alike to him.

"You are different." He told her, his voice was deep, with that musical quality that a baritone brings to gospel. "You see things are they are – not what the appear to be."

His smile was sincere, it was measured – matched by his mind. Silver Fox in turn frowned deeply, concentrating, for her this was a different experience, her thoughts had to sprint to match Detective Jones in contrast he was relaxed.

"The Parkers alerted you." He stated. It wasn't a question.

She nodded. They had hit the panic button she had installed, a pager that signalled her in the event that anyone should ask any questions connected to the events and people that linked them all together.

"You are looking for James." She told him. Five words spoken, five thousand more poured from her mind in as many pictures, memories. Their first kiss, Sabre tooth, the arrival of the star child on the slopes of Mount Logan, the man called Jimmy Olsen.

In turn the alien from Mars said "The man you know is not the same man as the one I hunt."

Silver Fox recoiled from the images of blood and death he shared. She shook her head in denial.

But she knew that by man Jon Jones had really meant _mind_. Logan's _mind_ had been altered, broken, erased, remade into something dark, something brutal. Outwardly he looked the same – inwardly changed.

"I can reach him." She told Detective Jones. More in faith than reason. "There must be something of Logan left."

Jones reached out and touched her face. "Perhaps." He said after a moment, he let his hand fall away. "You carry his true self within you still."

Silver Fox processed his words, along with the psychic meta-information which accompanied them.

"Then what are waiting for." Silver Fox replied, her decision made. She gunned the throttle, guiding the car out and onto the street with screech of complaint from the rubber wrapped wheels.

-X-

Crane 'Bolivar' Trask wiped the perspiration from his brow, staining his white handkerchief. On the central monitor of the war room the path of the six B52's flying in formation. Armed with conventional iron bombs this flight could level a rectangle of ground two miles long by just over half a mile wide, but carpet bombing a major American University wasn't going happen, even if two figures from myth were presently fighting each other at that location.

Another option was needed when dealing with enormously powerful individuals on home soil.

Trask smiled, years of planning and research had gone into this moment. There had been casualties along the way. He had taken PPM Bio-Mechanicals. A public merger with Trask Robotics, but one that Wall Street Journal called a thinly veiled hostile takeover. Forcing out Pym and Palmer driving them back into the cloistered walls of Academia had been a price worth paying. But the loss of the reclusive Wil Magnus in an accident at PPM's labs shortly before the merger was completed had robbed Trask of the greater prize. Magnus's individual genius.

He had forged other alliances. With the retirement from industry of Pym and Palmer, the loss of Magnus, Trask had found new associates.

Thomas Oscar Morrow shared Trask's fondness for facial hair, he was slick and professional, a Silicon Valley pioneer. Anthony Ivo was by contrast dishevelled, almost the storybook hair-brained professor made real, but their was method in Ivo's madness, a steely purpose in his eyes that demanded respect, however wrinkled his clothes might appear.

"Ultron is online." Morrow informed them. His fingers danced over the keyboard. Monitors displayed the data. Deep below them in an air conditioned room a super-computer was drawing power from the installations military nuclear reactor.

"Up link is established." Ivo confirmed. "ARGUS is operational."

"Delay between the Master Mould Psyche and the ground units should be negligible." Ivo told General Lane Ross.

The officer nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

"Provided your boys keep those birds flying," Task added, "we won't experience the usual satellite delay."

"I don't worry about the proven technology." Lane Ross replied.

Trask thought he detected contempt in the General's voice. The newly promoted professional airman stood at arms length both literally and metaphorically from them. The President had appointed Lane Ross to oversee the ARGUS program and to be the gate keeper to the resources of the US Military.

"Ultron is more than a computer General Lane, it is an artilect, and artificial intellect running the Master Mold program remotely through each discrete drone. Each robot reacts both intelligently and collectively in the combat environment."

"Save the sales talk." Lane Ross responded. "We'll know how effective this program is before the day is done."

-X-

Elaine Grey had no idea her daughter Jean, and her fellow X-men were only a few hundred yards away and closing. She cowered under her husbands desk, pressed into his chest, wrapped in his arms, around them the building shook, plaster dust fell from the cracked ceiling, broken glass that littered the commercial grade nylon carpet beloved of institutions. Exterior explosions flashed like lightning. Each reflective shard glistened against the neutral caramel. Blasts like thunder followed, punctuated by screams of terror, and inhuman roars. Noise that echoed around the impromptu battlefield, that had been minutes before been just another campus parking lot.

Pressed between John and Elaine was his precious discovery, excavated from high ground above the Hudson, the artefact had been interred with ceremony. Surrounded by marker stones, monoliths carved with the characteristic runes of the Northmen. Time had seen some upended, fallen, some buried completely. Eric the Red had hidden this treasure, wrapped in oil cloth, in pitched oak box, in a hollowed stone casket.

The Jord-box shone like gold, even now when pressed close to her chest, the gems stones that were mounted on the intricately decorated raise rune relief surface burned as if on fire. Even for a man of science her husband had whispered in awe, as the dirt had been lifted from its brilliant surface. It seemed otherworldly. The script was formed unlike any Rune script so far discovered, deciphering the oddly styled glyphs was problematic, yet the Norse title of the archetypal Earth-mother goddess was clear enough, and so the Jord-box was named.

Elaine Grey carried the mutant gene which had manifested itself so forcefully in Jean. Elaine was a latent telepath, a natural empath, she had gone through life trusting her instincts, leaning on her woman's intuition with the confidence that comes getting it right more often than not. Right now she was holding onto her husband, her thoughts were of love and family. The archaeological treasure of unparalleled value was an uncomfortable reality, Elaine knew this strange box had brought this calamity upon them. It was this anguish, her heightened emotional state, her thoughts of a family bereft of both parents, should death overtake her and John, and as the sounds of gunfire, explosions and screams continued to intensify, that fatal prospect looked all the more certain, coupled with her latent telepathic power that set in motion a series of events that would shape the world.

-X-

"You know what's important, is that we do something, we try." Scott Summers declared. He then released from his visored mask a blast red and brilliant force, that burst from his eyes. His mutant power flashed across ground smashing into a cyborg soldier, sending the reanimated corpse careering across the pavement.

"We're just kids." Bobby yelled, his voice was carried on a fierce blast of cold, air freezing around a matrix of ice that wrapped around one of the robot man hybrids.

Jean reflected, it was a peculiar war cry, here maybe not so much. The school she knew so well, had left behind had once been representative of her future, okay not this college, she imagined something different for her, farther afield, perhaps California, maybe even a foreign land. Now this institution of higher learning for fledgling adults was the playground of inhumans and the ambulatory dead, it was something Xavier confirmed, something she had felt certain of in her own mind, these cyborgs weren't truly alive.

Angel-Hawk had taken to sky, giving him a birds eye view of their mission, a path was mapped out by Xavier using C.W's perspective, taking them to her father's place of work. For her the mission had started out being about Kent. Raven had questioned the legitimacy of this incursion, the risks involved, and now Jean found she was closer still to the problem. For her the mission wasn't just about bringing Kent home, fixing the mess she'd inadvertently made, it had become even more personal, involving her parents in a way she hadn't expected.

Seeing the battle raging outside the history department had concentrated Jean's mind. The mission had been about Kent, now her thoughts were with her parents, or at least she was trying to make that happen, but as much as she tried to reach out to them, it wasn't. In this moment Jean Grey felt a lousy telepath. They had been scheduled to attend a college fund raiser, they were most probably on campus.

They might even be in the middle of all of this, she thought.

Raven took point, melting into the mayhem as if disappearing, striking out of sight, camouflaged to the point of invisibility she struck the opposition's man-machines with impunity, shifting her body shape into deadly forms, striking surgically with blade like claws, sometimes bluntly with a horny club, but always effective.

The division of labour followed their practised routines following Xavier's guidance. C.W. struck the cyborgs from above, Angel-Hawk dashing through their inverted rain of bullets, with mercurial speed and lightning changes of direction, his enhanced musculature, the strength his wings possessed, his gravity defying abilities, came together as he connected with their enemy. Combatants fell as his limbs struck glancing, passing blows. Angel-Hawk's dive turned into an upwards curve skywards. Cyclops covered Angel-Hawk's back as C.W climbed, his optic blasts scattering and confusing the mechanically augmented dead. Bobby cut his own swath through them, ice rendering them immobile, fouling both meat and metal.

Creating confusion, and opportunity. Hank loped through, his movements bombastic, but fluid, simian, and powerful, earning his codename Beast. Jean followed close, and brought her own telekenetic talent to bear on the enemy, using a Cyborg warrior as a weapon, bludgeoning his comrades with the man-machine held in her minds grasp like a flail.

Together they progressed to where the Warrior Woman was engaged with the bestial berserker.

This man's demeanour was polar opposite of Hank, whose animal like motion was measured and graceful. Whereas this Wolverine snarled and snapped with rabid rage and violence. The inhuman creature's claws burned with red hot intensity.

Jean recognised another mutant at instinctual level, recognising the psychic signature, and at the same time being repelled by something else both alien and familiar.

It was this sense of deja-vu that threatened to become terrifying.

Jean concentrated on the present, pushing these thoughts aside. She had no hesitation in picking sides, in this fight. However she then surprised heself.

The telepathic shunt she aimed at the berserker, separated him from the Warrior Woman. Telekentic energy shoved the Wolverine into the pavement, literally; cracking the concrete, and pushing the thrashing, raging predator into the black dirt below.

Jean felt exhilarated, as she pushed the Wolverine with her mind, crushing the breath from his lungs, to the point of unconsciousness.

Jean then stopped short of killing him. It took her all her strength to stop, she stood, still stunned, frozen in the moment by the enormity of her own actions. Staring at the Wolverine as he lay stunned in the deep makeshift grave his own form had dug, as the orange light his hot extended claws began to dim.

"Thank you sister for you aid." The Warrior Woman said with a smile of admiration, she staggered nonetheless, exhausted from the ceaseless battle with the Wolverine, bloodied but not defeated. "By Hera, you have great power."

"Thank you." Jean mumbled, thinking she was more surprised by her great power than the Warrior Woman who towered over her.

"Go," Hank shout to Jean, "find them" he meant her mom and dad. Hank rolled a shattered SUV into the hole, it fell front end in on top of the stunned berserker. Scott aimed a directed optic blast at another wrecked automobile, his red psychic energy hitting the ground and the base of car flipping it over like a coin, toppling it on top of the first with a resounding crash.

Kent stepped across the void towards them, emerging from the damaged grown floor of History building, alighting on the ground in an effortless fashion, this was not so remarkable, she had seen him leap far further, far higher, his companion, was another matter. Tall dark and beautiful.

"Jean?" Kent asked. "Are you okay?"

"Marvel Girl." Jean corrected him. "What do _you_ think _you_ doing here?" She demanded. Listening to her own angry voice as if an observer.

"Errr." Kent rubbed the back of his head, ruffling his hair. "This is Diana." Kent told her , not an answer, but the name at least identified the tall woman with him. "She's her mother's daughter." Kent added gesturing to the Warrior Woman. Who for her part did not seem to recognise Kent as an ally, even if he stood with her daughter.

Instead she held her sword at arms length between them. She addressed Jean. "You know this boy-thing?"

"I do." Jean replied. "We're classmates. Friends."

"Very well." The Warrior Woman noted, sheathing her blade. "And Diana, what do you make of him?"

"He isn't here for the artefact." her daughter replied.

Jean detected a host of conflicting emotions from the girl called Diana, realising at the same time, that they were of an age. She frowned deeply, glad her X-men mask hid her features, she felt conflicted too, Kent had that kind of effect on people.

He just stood there as if it were any other place, any other time, nonchalant.

Raven Darkholme appeared at her side, emerging from a camouflaged state as vivid blue Mystique, she was dressed for war in as much as her mutation allowed her to modify her form, she wore scale armour like some plated lizard, and sword like talons extended from her blue fingers. Deep yellow eyes stared into Jean's own. "Snap together Marvel Girl" She said taking her arm. "Take us to your parents."

"I..,"

"_Jean."_ Xavier's voice sounded inside her mind, his tone reassuring and familiar. "_Everything is fine, can you find your mother? I am certain your parents are close by."_

"Professor?" Jean gasped as Raven urged her forward. "What about Kent."

Jean felt like saying this isn't the plan. Yet at the same time she felt it should be, and again she felt something very strange was going on.

"I'm coming with you." Kent answered.

"_There's a powerful energy source too, Jean, it's creating a lot of psychic noise, I can't cut through it, not from here; but you're much closer, closer to your parents, use that closeness, reach out to them, find them."_

Jean realised the mission parameters had changed.

She did what Xavier asked. Reaching out with her mind-memory Jean Grey tried to peer through the psychic noise, the interference the Professor had described.

In her minds eye she became like a mist weaving between a web of crackling branches of light and energy, reaching through the maze. The energy construct was growing, an invisible lattice, spreading outwards. Jean plunged deep into the centre of the complex. She knew now not only were parents were in the building, they were the nexus of the expanding energy field.

A long moment later she gasped to Mystique. "My parents are here! Oh God help them, they are inside, in my dad's office. They've been in the middle of – all this."

Jean pointed upwards to the second floor.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Raven told her as they ran to the broken gaping wall of the History Department building. "This is why we train for the unexpected. Everything can change in a heartbeat."

Jean knew this was true, but it was cold comfort; her parents were in middle of something – an invisible power that even the Professor's mind couldn't penetrate. Yet hers could. Yes she was nearer, closer to the problem, but, Jean asked herself, should that matter?

Then the consequences of so much force expended in one place became plain. Still fighting Thor and Hercules tussle shook the ground again, broken and blistered the History Department, the building that housed her Father's office, cracked as its foundations moved. The weakened structure began to collapse.

"No!" The young man in the leather jacket growled. Kent now stood under the sagging structure his hands grasping a fallen beam, pushing against it, and contrary to common sense and the laws of physics the History department's imminent collapse was arrested.

Jean could see her parents cowering under her father's desk, as around them the fabric of the building crumbled. Blinded by dust and noise they could neither see or hear her voice; but Jean used her mind.

She slammed into the heart of the force that enveloped them, the growing energy lattice. The Jord-box her mother held throbbed with power, so much unbridled potential.

"Marvel Girl!" Mystique cried out.

Jean Grey fell to her knees, the feedback from her mother was overwhelming, the emotionally charged energies; love, concern, righteous indignation, and fear was a psychic crescendo.

Jean could see the Jord-Box alive with energies that flowed invisible to normal human perception. She could see with second sight that the box was cracked open, a tiny fraction, a clink of a whisper of a crack, but in doing so it had unleashed an irresistible force. One which took the shape and form of her mother's complex emotions. Some how the Jord-box had forged a psychic connection with Elaine Grey, and in a feedback loop this _device_, for Jean saw the golden box for what it was; was amplifying her mother's latent paranormal abilities.

"I have them." Diana stated with confidence fast become motion as she leapt from the ground past Kent whose incredible strength both held up and held together the collapsing building, and through a first story window, crashing through glass and wood with deliberate abandon, her grace like a dancer. Jean pushed herself up from the pavement, more an act of will than meat and bone, energy coursed through her, and her feet no longer touched the ground. In that moment Jean felt connected to her mother, to the device, to the Earth itself, and beyond. The enormity of everything, past, present and future, altogether at once was indescribable.

Jean pushed back once again, she felt like she had to keep pushing, this was her family. She concentrated on this moment, this location. On the tall dark haired girl, sharing Diana's thoughts.

Diana had an almost instinctual awareness of where Jean's parents were in the crumbling building above them. The predators perception inexplicably wed to the prey's unrelenting vigilance. Some unique genetic legacy was in play, a foundation that had been built upon.

Jean spoke the word. "Amazon."

Jean wondered at what kind of training could hone a human beings senses to such a developed extent, and then there was more than education, an unbridled potential, as yet unexpressed. Odd that Diana's beating heart, her pulsing blood should echo the otherworldly power that whelmed from the ancient box her mother held so tightly. Drywalls tumbled as the Amazon wrecking ball crashed into the office, and flipped the desk aside. It crashed through the window, making a opening.

"Your daughter sent me." She said as she reached out to Elaine Grey.

"Jean is here?" John Grey asked.

"Yes, outside." Diana lifted Elaine to her feet. Jean noted that her mother's arms were still around the Jord-Box, pressed into her chest Elaine's grasp did not loosen. "Quickly the building is collapsing." Diana continued.

At the nearest window Angel-Hawk alighted onto the sill.

"Here to me." He called out.

"Go." Diana said half pushing half propelling John Grey. Her father stumbled and fell towards the clutching hands of the winged mutant. Diana took up Elaine Grey, holding the adult woman as mother might a child. Angel-Hawk snatched the History Professor out of the room as a trapeze artist might, pulling him through the aperture, in a shallow arc, before dropping him in a controlled fashion to the ground.

Following the next instant after, Diana leapt clear past them. Her somersault no less graceful than before, even with Elaine Grey clinging to the young Amazon. She landed hard, falling into a deep crouch. Jean saw that her mother was however safe and sound in the young woman's arms.

Jean was also aware her feet were now planted back on the pavement. Aware the energy connected to the Jord-Box was waning, dissipating, leaving her feeling spent, drained of energy.

Behind them Kent shrugged off the weight of the building. Around him the structure collapsed almost immediately as if the young man had been holding the stricture together by force of will.

Xavier's telepathic voice returned, shouting through the waning psychic static. "_Get out of there now!_" He ordered. Jean realised that her Mentor had been absent, shut out by the power she had experienced.

Jean looked up, she could see the shapes of six planes flying in formation. Flashes of light followed them, falling away from the bellies of the aircraft.

Xavier's telepathic command was repeated, louder more emphatic. "_Get out!_"

Jean turned to run. Raven was indicating to the X-men to come together, to run out back to the helicopter.

"Professor Grey, Mrs Grey. Come with us – quickly." She stated.

Kent joined her beside Darkholme, as did the Amazons; Diana, and Diana's mother. Between them was Jean's mom. Elaine Grey still held the Jord-Box.

The first of the six objects dropped by the planes hit the ground. It's glide path slowed to near stop by a late opening parachute. This fabric brake fluttered away from the mainly cylindrical shape as it's payload touched down. The metal cylinder was barrel like, shaped like a fat bullet with stubby wings, with equal four fat fins, two on either side. As the object came to rest vertically these fins acted like feet.

Moments later that action was magnified. Six in total landed around the bard campus. Each immediately began the transformation from the aerodynamic winged cylinder into something else. The stubby nacelle like wings extended becoming legs, the fins opened to reveal tracked feet. From the top of the cylinder something resembling a head, extended and rotated, packed with mechanical sensory equipment, like a many eyed giant.

Splashed across the metallic body of the machines was makers mark "Trask Industries" followed by the the legend "SENTINEL"

Then the shooting started.

-'0'-


End file.
